Milo Matthieu (b. 1990, Los Angeles) is a first-generation Haitian-American painter and mixed-media artist based in Brooklyn. Raised between Los Angeles and New York, he developed an early interest in art through museums and performances, later drawing on the history and ideas behind different artistic movements.
His work is deeply connected to his Haitian heritage and to the images that surrounded him growing up, particularly traditional Haitian paintings and African masks. Although he did not grow up in Haiti, these references shaped what he describes as a “Haitian imaginary”, a personal space where cultural memory, identity and lived experience come together.
Matthieu’s paintings combine bold colour, layered textures and recurring forms that emerge and shift across the canvas. Rather than beginning with a fixed composition, he allows each work to develop through an open-ended process, responding to the relationships that emerge between colour, shape and image.
His recent series Stillness in the Between was developed during a two-month residency in Menorca. The island’s colours, textures and strong sense of community became important influences, while the slower pace of life encouraged a period of reflection and renewed freedom within his work. The resulting paintings bring together his Haitian heritage with his experience of the Mediterranean, exploring ideas of community, memory and the quiet moments that exist between periods of change.