Canadian artist Matthew Gagnon creates bold landscape images that feel as if they have stepped out of a print workshop, yet every piece is made entirely by hand. Using acrylic paint and technical drawing pens, his work explores how the visual language of graphic design and printmaking can exist within painting.
The compositions are built from large areas of flat colour, hard edges and limited palettes. The aesthetic recalls vintage posters, underground comics and mid-century illustration, but the surfaces reveal something different. Brush marks, thick paint and subtle imperfections remain visible across the work, leaving clear evidence of the artist’s hand.
For Gagnon, this approach is a way of reclaiming graphic imagery from purely digital production.
“I’m fascinated by the visual language of printmaking and graphic design,” he explains. “But I want the final image to still carry the marks of the process. The brush strokes and small imperfections are proof that a human being made it.”
Works such as Losing the Light, Bière Froide, Deep Freeze and Cold Light of Day combine graphic clarity with tactile surfaces. The landscapes often feel stylised and cinematic, balancing strong shapes with subtle atmospheric changes in colour and light.
Although the visual references range from vintage poster design to contemporary illustration, Gagnon’s guiding principle remains simple.
“The art I’m drawn to usually has one thing in common. It’s fun,” he says. “I want my work to feel playful and to reward viewers who spend time looking at it.”
By blending the bold language of graphic art with the physical presence of paint, Gagnon’s work sits somewhere between illustration, print culture and painting. It shows how contemporary graphic imagery can still be tactile, imperfect and unmistakably handmade.
Matthew Gagnon is a Canadian artist and illustrator based in Montreal. He studied Fine Arts at Concordia University and his work is held in shops, galleries and private collections across Canada and internationally.
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