My work uses cumulative mark-making to explore geometry, repetition, and the visual structures that emerge over time. I’m interested in the relationship between mathematics and aesthetics, and in the way simple systems can produce complex forms.

Most of my pieces are built slowly by hand through thousands of small marks and incremental decisions. The process is meditative and time-consuming, allowing patterns to evolve gradually while returning my focus to the immediate present. I’m drawn to the tension between order and unpredictability: precise geometric systems that still feel alive, imperfect, and human.

Underlying the work is an interest in how humans search for order, meaning, and beauty through pattern and form. Using repetition, chance, and systematic labour, I try to create works that invite sustained attention and reward close looking.

Matt Trahan holds a BFA from The University of Western Ontario (2009) and an MFA from The University of Victoria (2012). He currently lives and works in Victoria, BC on the traditional lands of the Lekwungen-speaking peoples.