Donny Matthew Smutz
Studio: Nashville, Tenn.
B. Jan. 26, 1978, Iola, Kansas
Hometown: Pittsburg, Kansas

Donny Smutz might be from America’s heartland, but his artwork has little to do with flat cornfields, grain elevators, and big skies. Smutz, an artist from Pittsburg, Kansas, now a resident of Nashville, Tenn., paints surrealist art—acrylic on canvas—that has more in common with the landscape of dreams than the landscape of the Midwest.

“My artwork was a substitute for getting out and seeing the world. I was in Middle America, and my artwork was my escape,” said Smutz, who as a child would draw in his bedroom until he fell asleep. Today, while others are sleeping, Smutz is usually working in his Nashville studio, painting not some preconceived vision, but rather what occurs to him in the moment. Like a dream, Smutz tries to tap into his subconscious when he paints, which is perhaps why the finished product often doesn’t make sense to him until later. Like a dream, it requires some mulling over, and a fair amount of interpretation.

“Ideally, I paint late at night when it’s dark, no one’s around, and it’s hopefully raining outside,” Smutz said. “I just can’t paint in the day when it’s bright and shiny. When everyone’s asleep and dreaming, that’s when my best comes out. And when you wake up in the morning, I’ll have a new painting on the wall—probably something you dreamed about the night before.”

Smutz, who is self-taught, says he hopes that his mystical, ethereal paintings elicit reactions from people—positive or negative. But even if they don’t—even if no one ever sees another piece of his artwork again—Smutz said he would continue to paint. Drawing and painting as a child was an escape from the stresses of school and Smutz’s way of dreaming up a new reality. And painting is still Smutz’s escape—his dreams, put to canvas. “When I’m painting, I’m not thinking about bills or relationships. It’s my outlet for everyday stresses,” Smutz said. “Stress actually makes me want to get in the studio.”

--- Cameron Conant is a former newspaper reporter and the author of With or Without You and The Year I Got Everything I Wanted.