Some artists arrive at their work through a single doorway. Matt Conlon seems to have arrived through an entire theatre lobby, with color spilling across the walls, music echoing from somewhere backstage, and a lifetime of stories following close behind him.
Matt Conlon, who shares his work through @mconlonfigurativeart and @mconlonart, is a Chicago artist with deep roots in performance, visual storytelling, and creative history. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Matt came from a family with a remarkable connection to Hollywood and color itself. His mother, Cammie King Conlon, played Bonnie Blue Butler in Gone with the Wind, and his grandfather, Dr. Herbert T. Kalmus, was one of the key figures behind Technicolor, serving as its president for many years.
That connection to color is not just a family footnote. It feels central to the way Matt talks about art, emotion, and the act of creating. His work is full of feeling, and his love of color runs through it like a signature. Whether he is drawing, painting, or exploring something abstract, there is a sense that Matt is not simply making something to be looked at. He is trying to make something that can be felt.
A Life Shaped by Theatre
Before Matt became known for his visual art, theatre was already woven deeply into his life. He studied Theatre at California Institute of the Arts, earning his BFA in 1982, and later earned his MA in Theatre from Loyola Marymount University in 1985 on a full scholarship. His history with performance goes back even further than that. Matt has spent most of his life involved in theatre, including acting, modeling, and both front-of-house and backstage work.
His first acting teacher was Stella Adler, whose conservatory in Los Angeles happened to be right across the street from his elementary school. His mother used to joke, “Before daycare, there was Stella Adler.” It is the kind of detail that feels almost too perfect, as if Matt’s life was always nudging him toward art, performance, and creative expression.
In December of 1985, Matt moved to Chicago with hopes that perhaps John Hughes might be interested in his talents. That particular door did not open, but Chicago still became home. Matt stayed, built a life there, and worked with many of the city’s theatres. Over time, his creative path expanded beyond the stage and into visual art, where color, movement, and emotion became their own kind of performance.
Finding Another Language Through Art
Several years ago, Matt began working at Blick Art Supply in Evanston, a job that gave him more time and space to draw. He became known as the marker, pen, and pencil guy, doing demos and workshops before the pandemic changed so much of daily life. But the creative spark did not disappear. If anything, drawing became even more meaningful.
Matt has described drawing as therapeutic, and that feeling comes through in the way his work is presented. There is an emotional openness to it. His influences include Impressionist artists like Monet and Renoir, along with abstract artists such as Rothko and Klee, but Matt’s work does not feel confined to one lane. He loves to draw all sorts of things, and that freedom shows. His art feels curious, expressive, and deeply personal.
There is also something beautiful about the way Matt’s creative life seems to bridge disciplines. Theatre taught him how to understand presence, timing, mood, and emotion. Visual art gave him another way to express those same instincts. Instead of speaking through a character onstage, he now speaks through color, texture, line, and composition.
Community, Love, and Creative Legacy
Matt is currently connected with Artem Pop-Up Gallery in Evanston, Illinois, where he is preparing to celebrate his third year. His residency there gives people a chance to encounter his work in person and experience the color and emotion that define so much of his artistic identity.
Beyond his own work, Matt has always been deeply supportive of the arts, especially LGBTQIA+ artists and communities. That support matters. Queer creativity does not exist in isolation. It grows through networks of people who show up, make space, encourage one another, and insist that art belongs to all of us.
Matt has also been happily married to his husband, Rob, for 23 years. Together, they share their home with two gray sister cats named Judy and Betty Haines. It is a detail that adds exactly the right touch of warmth, humor, and personality to the portrait of an artist whose life has been shaped by theatre, family history, color, community, and love.
In many ways, Matt Conlon’s story is a reminder that creativity does not have an expiration date, and it does not have to stay in one form. A person can begin onstage, move behind the scenes, pick up a pen, fall in love with color, and still be discovering new ways to speak through art decades later.
Matt’s work carries that sense of ongoing discovery. It honors where he came from while still reaching toward whatever comes next. And for anyone who believes art should make us feel something, his work is absolutely worth finding.
Find Matt Conlon on Instagram: @mconlonfigurativeart and @mconlonart
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