Matt Gondek
Matt Gondek
Matt Gondek (born 1982) is a painter, street muralist, and a former graphic illustrator based in Los Angeles, United States.
Biography
Matt Gondek is a prominent deconstructive pop artist who had developed the flare for painting since he was a child.
Gondek began to pursue a career as an artist at a young age by creating his first comic book when he was in elementary school.
His first professional gig as an artist was as a digital illustrator, creating commissioned artworks and graphics for licensed clothing for the music industry.
He still paints comic book characters, but they are often found in murals on sprawling facades of buildings or in paintings displayed in a contemporary art gallery.
Career
Gondek started his career as a freelance digital illustrator in the music industry.
He designed album artwork, tee design, tour posters, among others for years while he was working in the music industry.
In 2014, he started painting while he was trying to figure out what he could do artistically to support himself financially.
He started out solely doing canvas work with one or two murals done with Brush Paint while he was in Pittsburgh.
Most of his artworks are inspired by characters from popular cartoon franchises like The Simpsons and Disney series. In an interview with HYPEBEAST, he said
If you look back at, say, renaissance paintings, a lot of the work from that time was a reflection of their day to day life and culture or religion.
Historically, a majority of most artwork was a reflection of that time period, and I’m no different.
I grew up with these characters and imagery pounded into my brain on a daily basis.
How could I ignore them when finding my voice?[6]
Some of his earliest projects include a huge mural in Las Vegas for a clothing brand called CVLN, Drippy Pink Panther on a big yellow couch, A Mickey Mouse fist fighting Bugs bunny, big Batman in Compton, among others.[5]
NTFs
CYBERBULLY (Chrome Edition)
On November 16, 2020, Matt Gondek collaborated with Nifty Gateway to release his first digital collection features of six editions of Gondek’s CYBERBULLY character holding a bat with spikes inspired by Walt Disney’s Donald Duck. Options include yellow, pink, teal, white, and chrome editions.
The yellow, pink, and teal editions were sold at $250 while the white and black editions were sold at $350, and lastly, the chrome edition was sold at $4,800 on Nifty Gateway’s website.[7]
On February 26, 2021, he sold two NTFs pieces namely, The Best Revenge and Bitter Divisions at $999 and 2500$ respectively.
Personal
His favorite artist is Lichtenstein, however, he has admiration for Jeff Koons and Brian Donnelly (popularly known as Kaws).
Trivia
He started street art out of depression (because he hated sitting on the computer for long hours while he was working in the music industry).
In an interview with Bombing Science, he said
I started doing “street art” out of a place of depression and not knowing what else to do.
I didn’t like the direction where my life was going and I wanted to be happy.
When I paint I’m happy.
Simple as that.