(upbeat music)
(waves roaring)
(upbeat music)
- [Ralf] Greenpoint was always a part of Brooklyn
that was out of time with the rest of the borough.
It was always a little more serene
and chill around here.
But during the pandemic
things have slowed down so much.
That serenity has now become eerie.
Instead of Greenpoint being out of time with Brooklyn
it seems like time here is standing completely still.
(door knock)
(rock music)
- Hi - Matthew?
- [Matthew] Come on in.
(both mumbling)
- [Matthew] Welcome.
- [Ralf] Thanks. Thanks for letting me in.
(upbeat music)
- [Ralf] Can we do no mask?
Is that okay?
- [Matthew] It's okay if we're this far apart.
- All right.
- As far as I'm concerned.
- I respect it.
- [Ralf] How long have you been working here Matthew?
- [Matthew] From the start.
From 2014.
The owner, Tony is a very good friend of mine.
And he's the one who created all of this.
Like, so when he was building it out
I was one of guys who came to help him.
I'm not from here, but I've been here since 88 or 89.
So.
- I can't imagine how different this area was back then.
- It was desolate then.
I mean, desolate.
You know, now there's trendy cafes and restaurants
and bars and, you know
doggy daycare and, you know, Pilates studios.
There was none of that.
I moved to Brooklyn because I could afford it.
I've lived on the same block since, you know, then.
Since 89.
Now Brooklyn has been completely branded
and sold as a thing.
It's like the place it wasn't when I came here.
(atmospheric music)
The pandemic, my life changed
from one day to the next like that.
You know, I think my last shift that I worked here
was right around St. Patrick's day.
And then, you know, all bars closed.
So it was like,
so I went from working three or four shifts a week to none.
You know.
And then I went into kind of serious self quarantine
for a few months.
You know.
I just completely stopped working.
I think it was easier for me
because I've been most of my life,
before I worked here,
I've been alone in my studio all day.
And that was my job.
So I'm used to being alone.
So, you know, that was easier for me
than I think for a lot of other people, you know,
who are freaking out after one month.
And I was like, it's only been a month.
They're like, what's the big deal.
- I'm always fascinated by the (clears throat)
I'm sure Manhattan is like this too,
but by this capacity that Brooklyn has to like,
be like, the most densely populated places in the world
and also feel like a small town.
- Greenpoint is definitely a small town.
Definitely.
I mean, we're being invaded by this huge wave of people
but that's been going on for a decade at least.
And it continues.
Like the fancy new people that are moving in here.
They don't really come here.
Once in a while, like someone walks in
and says,
"Can I see a drink menu?"
And you know, we laugh.
(upbeat music)
- [Ralf] When I was a kid
I always imagined that I would get good at pool.
It's not my destiny.
- [Matthew] I don't play pool either.
Which is kind of funny. (laughs)
(upbeat music)
- [Ralf] So you said you started working here in 2014?
- Yes.
- [Ralf] Yeah.
So before that
I think I understand you were just like a full-time artist?
- Yes.
I was very lucky
for most of my life.
- I think all the time about like,
the small ways that I get to like make art for a living
which is all I've been working towards my whole life.
And when I think about that
and like anybody who makes that possible, is like,
they mean everything to me
because like that's all I want to do.
It's to be able to just make art for a living.
It's like a dream.
It sort of doesn't seem fair that
like other guys are laying brick.
And like, my job is to have fun for a living.
- You've put it beautifully.
Like, wow, other guys, you know
or people are slaving away in their cubicles
in jobs they hate.
And I have this dream job
where I kind of just do whatever I want.
And then other people try to sell it for me.
You know. I mean, it does seem kind of too good to be true.
I usually average like a show every year or every two years.
Obviously it's up and down.
It's like one year, you know, you have a show
and you sell a bunch of big paintings
and you do really, really well.
And then the next year, maybe you don't have a show.
You know, it's not like having a job
with a regular paycheck.
(upbeat music)
- [Ralf] Would you take me to check out your old studio?
- [Matthew] Yeah.
- Okay.
- [Matthew] You see the big building with the pencils on it?
I was in the next building.
That brick one.
- [Ralf] Okay.
- [Matthew] It was all part of the same, like factory
which made Eberhard-Faber pencils.
- [Ralf] You work out of your home now?
- [Matthew] Yep.
- Do you miss this studio?
And if so, what's the biggest thing
you miss about it? - [Matthew] I don't miss
paying for it.
That's for sure.
(wistful music)
- [Matthew] This is Ahab, from Moby Dick.
King Ahab.
This is from the party where
he hallucinates that he's wearing
the iron crown of Lombardy
which is the crown of Charlemagne.
- [Ralf] You have two pieces from--
- I have probably 25.
That's the number one obsession.
Is Moby Dick.
Yeah. I've probably read it 10 times at least.
And it's a big book,
but there's so much in there.
It's like reading the Bible, you know.
It's everything.
- [Ralf] Mr. Bishop would be so ashamed of me.
We were assigned to read it
and I just sat the whole time pretending
that I read it. - [Matthew] It's a lot.
(Ralf laughs)
- [Matthew] This is actually Vishnu
the Hindu God who has these avatars.
In the book he's called Matsya Avatar
which is kind of a sailor's corruption
of what he actually is.
This one is a scene from a novel by Wilkie Collins
called the Moonstone.
This is a study for a much larger painting
which is now in France.
The finished painting is seven feet by five feet.
But this is my nephew.
This is one of my very best friends,
Glamamore
who's a very famous drag queen in San Francisco.
What they're doing is
they're searching for this huge yellow diamond
that has been stolen from an idol in India.
And it's made it into the hands of the English aristocracy.
So like in the finished painting
they're standing in front of the diamond.
- [Ralf] I dunno.
I feel like there's some sort of mystical,
like incantation happening in it.
And like,
I feel like one is happening to me
as I'm looking at it.
- Wow. That's great.
I like that.
- [Ralf] Yeah. It's like hypnotizing me.
(mysterious music)
- [Matthew] This is also Glamamore,
one of my best models ever.
This guy, he's Holgrave
from the House of the Seven Gables.
He's a character who lives in the house
who's actually a photographer.
- [Ralf] Did you invent his face as well?
- [Matthew] No. This is my buddy Mike from upstate.
That's what I'm saying.
Usually I do this casting where I think
who could be Holgrave?
And then I photographed him
and painted him in this way.
These are the stories
that I lived
or read
or related to.
So yeah, it is my life.
Like all of these people are super close to me.
You know.
These guys are also my friends.
This is a study for this commission I had.
These were panels in these painted doors.
And these two guys live across the street.
They're both my friends,
Richie and Ajee.
This is Nicole.
She used to work at the Pencil Factory bar on the corner.
This is my first partner Alejandro.
I moved into this apartment with him.
He was a school teacher.
So that was actually how
he went to school every day.
Like this guy is an old friend of mine.
Robert Florider.
He was a kind of a legendary go-go dancer
in my club days.
I made a big paper mache rock for him
which I used to have for years, but I finally did--
And he doesn't have this hair either.
I added that.
- [Ralf] What are all of these guys here?
- [Matthew] You know, I closed my storage.
I didn't want to pay, you know
300 a month for the art storage
so I got rid of it.
- [Ralf] It makes me pretty sad that, like
one, that I didn't get to enjoy it as well.
But two that, like, it feels like Brooklyn was
for a long time, this like hidden quiet haven for artists.
That was like cheap to be in and there was space.
And now all of a sudden, because of the artists themselves
because of the value you guys have added
it's like become so much more expensive.
So it's like more expensive to have a studio
and to have a place to store your work.
- I'm happy I still have my apartment, you know.
I'm rent stabilized here.
I've been here since 1992 in this apartment.
So they can't throw me out.
And I thought, well, I'll make this work, you know?
(ambient music)
'Cause I don't really believe in time.
To me it's kind of all the same.
(ambient music)
It's simultaneous.
It's hard to explain,
but
I believe in it in the sense
that we all have to live within it and work with it.
Like, I had to be there at nine o'clock this morning.
Like, that's a real thing.
Like, okay.
It seems real, but it's not actually real.
- [Ralf] That's such a big, like philosophy.
And does that reflect itself in your painting?
- [Matthew] Yes.
- [Ralf] How so?
- [Matthew] Because a lot of people say,
"Why do you work in this nostalgic style?"
Or,
"Why is it all about the 19th century?"
They don't get it
why it doesn't necessarily look like contemporary art.
I mean, it does to me
but,
definitely it's reflected, you know,
in the style, in the images, in the stories.
- [Ralf] If you're saying that time is not really a concept
that you hold on to
but you work in like an nostalgic style
and you're reaching back into the past.
To me, it feels like
if time doesn't really matter to you,
then reaching back to the past
is almost the same as reaching forward.
- [Matthew] It is exactly right.
There isn't a past.
That's what I'm saying.
There isn't a past and a future.
To me, it's all the same.
- That's hitting me like a ton of bricks.
- Sorry.
It's so nice and quiet here, right?
- [Ralf] Has it always been like this?
- [Matthew] Yeah. It's super quiet.
- [Ralf] Time stands still in Matthew's work.
In the past, I'd have said his paintings seemed to
keep the time of some mysterious far off world.
But right now they seem to keep pretty accurate time
for this one.
New York in 2020 is standing just as still.
So much is happening
and yet, so little,
but artists keep working.
They'll find a way or imagine one.