PULLMAN – Oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico with no end in sight and every day seems to bring news of another financial crisis, terrorist attack or environmental disaster. That’s our world.
But, this summer, you can escape to the World of Mateo at the WSU Museum of Art. Pullman artist Matthew Leiker, who paints under the name Mateo, evokes a world where it’s still possible to pull into to a space-age motel with a parking lot pool and live the good life.
Meticulously rendered in gouache and acrylic, Leiker’s paintings strip away extraneous detail to create what are essentially tributes to midcentury leisure culture and the playful commercial design that helped define it. One canvas features a smiling couple, suitcases in hand (the kind that do not roll!), standing in front of their “tropical” motel, complete with towering palm trees. On another canvas, a middle-aged man in swimming trunks, his farmer’s tan apparent to all the world, jogs toward the pool.
Leiker’s perspective
“I draw on my own experiences and on my own interests,” Leiker said, and it turns out that some of his most memorable experiences happened in and around Disneyland. A child in the 1970’s, Leiker has fond memories of his family traveling south from their home in Northern California to the heart of Southern California vacationland–Anaheim.
“I draw on my own experiences and on my own interests,” Leiker said, and it turns out that some of his most memorable experiences happened in and around Disneyland. A child in the 1970’s, Leiker has fond memories of his family traveling south from their home in Northern California to the heart of Southern California vacationland–Anaheim.
“We’d stay in the goofy motels with the space age themes,” Leiker said. “As a kid, I really loved that. I didn’t realize until I got older that it really stuck with me.”
He returned there in the 1990s and spent seven years working inside the Magic Kingdom, primarily on rides such as the Jungle Cruise and The Haunted Mansion, where he met his future wife, Celestina Barbosa. Leiker then spent another three years working the front desk at a hotel across the street.
No alternative
Always attracted to art and design, Leiker said he spent 10 years trying to find something to do other than art, without success. Finally, he said, his wife urged him to do what he loved. While she pursued advanced degrees in psychology, Leiker returned to college in 2001 to study art at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. He didn’t worry about the future, he said, he just focused on doing art.
Always attracted to art and design, Leiker said he spent 10 years trying to find something to do other than art, without success. Finally, he said, his wife urged him to do what he loved. While she pursued advanced degrees in psychology, Leiker returned to college in 2001 to study art at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts. He didn’t worry about the future, he said, he just focused on doing art.
Then, he said, his paintings were much more realistic, almost photographic in their details. But, in the years since he’s been out of college he has allowed himself to return to the images, illustrations, design, architecture and music that first caught his attention 20 or 30 years ago, including work by Mary Blair and Jim Flora.
Reality doesn’t match
While his paintings celebrate the easy life of middle class, midcentury America, Leiker said he’s well aware that the images don’t match reality. “It take me long to realize that it was only a good life if you were a white, middle-class male,” he said.
While his paintings celebrate the easy life of middle class, midcentury America, Leiker said he’s well aware that the images don’t match reality. “It take me long to realize that it was only a good life if you were a white, middle-class male,” he said.
The thing is, he said, he isn’t celebrating life as it was, so much as life as people imagined it could be. “It’s the promise that I’m celebrating,” he said. “I thought nobody would get it,” he said, but it turns out that “everybody gets it.”
And that includes WSU Museum Curator Keith Wells and Museum Director Christopher Bruce.
On the outside fringe
Wells said there are many talented artists on the Palouse, but he was still surprised and excited to find Leiker’s work. “He’s doing things on an outside fringe,” Wells said. Leiker knows what he wants and he’s going after it in a style that is all his own, Wells said.
Both Wells and Bruce instantly connected with Leiker’s interest in how the exotic (Hawaii, for instance, or space) was brought into mainstream culture by midcentury designers. Still, it’s a little hard to describe, which is why Wells proposed exhibiting Leiker’s paintings along with some of the ephemera that inspires it. Finding that ephemera was easy because Leiker keeps it close at hand. In the basement of Leiker’s Military Hill home, adjacent to his light-filled studio, Leiker has created what he calls his own personal Tiki Lounge.
Old designs inspire new art
Yes, there is a collection of Tiki mugs, a Tiki mask or two, and at least one parrot hangs from the ceiling. But, there’s also a space-age star clock on the fireplace. (“My mom had one that was the same exact style!” Wells said.) Rectangular wall art circa 1950’s and 60’s — including several examples of Picasso-esque marquetry — crowd the walls. A bookshelf is filled with a collection of Little Golden Books and a pristine copy of Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls.
Yes, there is a collection of Tiki mugs, a Tiki mask or two, and at least one parrot hangs from the ceiling. But, there’s also a space-age star clock on the fireplace. (“My mom had one that was the same exact style!” Wells said.) Rectangular wall art circa 1950’s and 60’s — including several examples of Picasso-esque marquetry — crowd the walls. A bookshelf is filled with a collection of Little Golden Books and a pristine copy of Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls.
If there is a unified theme, it isn’t readily apparent. “This is where I come from,” Leiker said. “My relatives decorated their homes like this.”
One corner of the room has a collection of radios from the 50’s and 60’s and there are a couple hi-fi’s on which Leiker often plays music by Les Baxter, Henry Mancini or Martin Denny. A ukulele draped with a lei hangs on one wall and bongo drums sit on a nearby shelf.
“You probably won’t find anything in here that is authentically Hawaiian, that’s the part of it I like,” Leiker said. But don’t misunderstand him; he’s not mocking the decor or the music, he’s celebrating it.
“I just can’t get enough of it,” he said. “It’s just escapist fun, which is what my art is.”
The Pullman years
When Leiker moved to Pullman with Celestina in 2003, the deal was that he’d work for five years while she earned her doctoral degree in psychology, and then he would get five years to concentrate on his art. By day he helped sort and display the detritus of strangers working as the manager at Palouse Treasures, a thrift shop operated by Palouse Industries, and by night he focused on the capturing the essence of those old images and experiences he still loves. That was when his distinctive style started to gel, he said.
When Leiker moved to Pullman with Celestina in 2003, the deal was that he’d work for five years while she earned her doctoral degree in psychology, and then he would get five years to concentrate on his art. By day he helped sort and display the detritus of strangers working as the manager at Palouse Treasures, a thrift shop operated by Palouse Industries, and by night he focused on the capturing the essence of those old images and experiences he still loves. That was when his distinctive style started to gel, he said.
Even before Celestina earned her degree in 2008, Leiker was finding support for his work.
In 2007 he was asked to do the cover art and chapter dividers for “Anaheim Vacationland,” author David Oneal’s fond look at the heyday of Anaheim mom and pop motels and restaurants. With deadlines, and more prospects, looming, Leiker quit his job and began painting full time.
In 2007 he was asked to do the cover art and chapter dividers for “Anaheim Vacationland,” author David Oneal’s fond look at the heyday of Anaheim mom and pop motels and restaurants. With deadlines, and more prospects, looming, Leiker quit his job and began painting full time.
In 2009 he was chosen to create the Lentil Festival poster and about that same time he met Anna-Maria Shannon, assistant curator of the WSU art museum. Celestina’s Ph.D. advisor, Craig Parks, is friends with Shannon, and he had encouraged Shannon to look up Leiker’s work, but Shannon said she was skeptical.
“You know, I hear this all the time,” Shannon said, and laughed. But she did look him up and it was love at first sight.”His work straddles illustration and cartoon,” she said, “but he’s an incredibly gifted painter.”
While Leiker has sold some paintings and prints of his paintings at summer festivals, The World of Mateo at the Museum of Art/WSU is the first public showing of his work. This summer he and Celestina are moving to Spokane where she has taken a job with WSU Spokane. Leiker’s latest project with author David Oneal is titled “Disneyland Souvenirs of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s” and should be released in the next month or so.
For more information about the World of Mateo and Matthew Leiker, visit worldofmateo.com