In the exhibition A Seeker's Paradise, a collection of exquisitely layered and hand-cut mixed media works, artist Matthew Picton traces the evolution of cities and empires through an approach that integrates history and politics with art and architecture. Picton creates an awareness of historical patterns and repetitions through pieces that reference and mirror each other. The legendary descent into the splendid decadence of Ancient Rome is juxtaposed with the equally excessive later years of the commercial empires of Venice and London. And the shorter lived worlds of Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire are placed next to the extravagance of the self-exiled Portuguese royal court in Rio de Janeiro. The show also includes works that reference Vatican City and Mecca, two of the world's most significant religious power centers and pilgrimage sites that are the spiritual focal points for billions of people seeking a connection with the eternal.

Picton, through his highly original visual narrative, explores how leaders and their followers often seek to establish some sort of paradise on earth but often end up in disillusionment, leaving room for the next generation. The artist makes connections between how rulers seek to embellish and demonstrate their magnificence through art, costume, ceremony, and flamboyant parade. He aims to present how power is made visible and architecture bears witness and provides the symbols of the afterlife, authority, paradise, and the keys to eternity.

Picton delves into the history of a multitude of charismatic visionaries, prophets, conquerors, ideologues, and leaders attempting to either fulfill a personal quest or to organize others to create their dream. His works reference patriarchal figures who had imagined themselves to have a connection with the destiny of history and thought themselves in charge of the betterment of their nation or humankind.

"The greatest and most sublime creations of religious architecture contain both the aspirations for the divine and have also been associated with repression and control," says Picton. "Human contemplation of the divine has produced works of art that have the transcendent harmony of Michelangelo and Bernini’s Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, and the sublime perfection of the great ceiling of the Sheik Lotfollah mosque in Isfahan designed by Sheikh Bahai. In the art of these places there existed a harmony in contrast to the discordant nature of human society."

Nancy Toomey Fine Art