Matt Duffin

Matt Duffin (b. 1968, Houston, Texas) received his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Houston. Though trained as an architect, Duffin chose a career in art, where his precision with structure, perspective, and spatial logic merges with deeply human themes of solitude, irony, and dark humor. His labor-intensive paintings, executed in encaustic wax after early work in charcoal, are defined by sharp planes, stark contrasts, and a limited color palette that challenges perception and blurs the line between realism and imagination.

Duffin’s work explores an interior world of contradiction: uneasy yet lighthearted, ominous yet playful. Through visual humor, described by Duffin as a “universal language,” he animates inanimate objects and familiar commercial characters, transforming them into quirky narrative figures that subvert expectation. Rooted in a fascination with darkness and its emotional resonance, his paintings invite viewers to reflect, wonder, and ultimately chuckle at the strange lives unfolding within them.

Duffin’s work is held in numerous private and institutional collections, including the Crocker Art Museum, the Progressive Art Collection, and the Howard Tullman Collection of Contemporary Art. He currently splits his time between Barcelona, Spain, and Guadalajara, Mexico.