West Chapter ConferenceSpeakers

C. Matthew Luther

Saturday, November 08, 2025 @ 11:20am,

Regarding Land - The Impact of Ecological Ruin in the Inland Empire

Matthew Luther is a multimedia photographer and printmaker working in Riverside California. He draws inspiration from landscapes and everyday nuances. His artwork explores the human relationship to nature and the connection of visual imagery to memory. An essential part of Luther's work is his research and documentation into toxic pollution, Superfund sites, and connection to human illness. The culmination of this work is the project titled Canvas of Ruin.

The photographs from this project are used in combination with printmaking techniques to create paintings that investigate concepts of abstraction, memory, human ideology, and digital consciousness in connection with nature. Original paintings and prints are scanned at a high resolution, reframed, altered, printed, and then finished with gold leaf, paint, or screen-printed with imagery on top of the printed surface. A metaphorical cycle of layers created within the art process like the psychological layers of the brain or scar tissue embedded in layers of skin or the surface of the earth.

Matthew is originally from Virginia and studied art in Oregon and Wisconsin. Along with international exhibitions in China, Italy, and South Korea, Luther has been a visiting Artist-in-Residence in Iceland, Sweden, Norway, and Finland.