Bitfactory Gallery is proud to wrap up the year with the first solo exhibition by visual artist and musician Deca (Matthew Kenney) entitled As long as hope shows something green running December 20, 2024 through January 11, 2025, at 851 Santa Fe Drive.

The pieces in the show highlight the dreamlike, animated quality of his artwork, achieved through thoughtfully and precisely rendered patterns and colors using acrylic paint and ink on wood. To put more formal terms to his style, one might recognize elements of Tessellation Art (a repeated pattern of one or more shapes) and Mediumistic Art (influenced by spiritualism) with clear references to Modern Psychedelic Art. The public is invited to meet and visit with the artist during an Opening Reception at the gallery on December 20, 6-9 p.m., and to view the show during First Friday, Jan 3, 2025 6-9 p.m and regular gallery hours Tues -Sun, 11:30 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Deca describes his process as an intuitive one. Starting with a vague idea of what he wants to achieve, he begins with a line drawing and slowly builds the piece from there. He often gets ideas from his dreams, pulling in inspiration from patterns and quilt books. He discovers the color palette as the piece evolves. Some works focus on fine details, others include figurative profiles skillfully collaged together, arranging color and shape to provide subtle dimension.

Deca is originally from Denver but is currently based out of NYC. He is mostly self-taught, creating comics and graffiti since a young age. After years of focusing solely on making music, he reignited his interest in visual art in 2011.

I got back into art as a way of creating that didn't feel as heavy to me as my process of making music. It's a lot more meditative…it's my very small way of trying to aid in the healing of what I see as an extremely sick society. That's the main intention behind both my visual art and my music.

His work has been exhibited in galleries in NYC and Denver including previous group shows at Bitfactory. He has also designed most of his album covers.