Rapahoe’, oil on board, 210mm x 195mm, 2001

. . . .travels . . . Matthew Summers: new paintings Idiom Studio, 25 July – 11 August, 2002 "Probably the most important tool for my painting has been my car," says Wellington artist Matt Summers. "In the last year I’ve been to a lot of places in New Zealand I hadn’t seen before." The results – exceptionally vibrant landscapes of the Wellington region, Coromandel, Tauranga and the West Coast - are on show at Wellington’s Idiom Studio until 11 August. Their rich colours are mixed from just five different tubes – yellow, red, two blues and white – and applied thickly to create intense, vivid scenes on a small scale. "I like working at this scale," Matt says. "I find it a lot more intimate. Smaller work draws you in - you have to go close to have a look at it, and it gives a more personal interpretation of the place." Matt been painting and exhibiting steadily since leaving Wanganui’s Quay School of the Arts in 1999, and his highly distinctive work has appeared in a variety of settings. This year Matt has also been training as a secondary school art teacher. Some of the works in his exhibition derive from telling his classes about the Fauvists, the wild European colourists of a century ago. "One of the reasons I enjoy teaching so much is that I’m learning through it myself."