Matt “Magick” Szal is an oil/watercolor painter and animation artist from Ft. Worth, Texas. He studied at Pratt in New York City and has shown in galleries in New York, Dallas and Los Angeles. Since 2020, he has been making the animated series “The Flying Dutchess” along with teaching art and history classes for Varsity Tutors plus private students on Zoom.Magick’s work often deals with the sublime, the tension between the insignificance of man in comparison to nature. French philosophy, especially the work of Camus, Satre and Foucault is central to his work’s conceptual investigation. Art history and its relevance in today’s art world is another theme that finds itself in his essays and paintings.It is my love of the Masters that came before me, that inspires my studio practice everyday. I picked up the brush for Goya, for Turner, for Vermeer, for Raphel, for Titian and for Caravaggio. In my darkest hour, their example sustains me and provides hope through constant struggles and financial depravity. I only pray I can do them justice by my work…– Matthew “Magick” SzalThe last fifteen years have been spent perfecting his dexterity with the brush and the pen, both digitally and in traditional mediums. His father took him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when he was 12 and he asked to return the next day, ever since he has been completely obsessed with art and art history.