The Light of Sand - A luminous new solo exhibition by Victor Matthews at Space Gallery St Barth. 

Opening cocktail Friday Nov 28th from 6-8pm

Front cover of  St-Barth Weekly - Local News in English
Edition N°507 - November 27, 2025

Pictured here Victor Matthews
Music Sounds Migration Thoughts, 2025
Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 in (121.92 x 121.92 cm)

Kicking off its 15th anniversary season, Space Gallery in Gustavia presents The Light of Sand, a luminous new solo exhibition by Victor Matthews – his first on the island in six years. From November 26 through December 10, the exhibit showcases a selection of Matthews’ latest abstract works, tracing his continuing artistic evolution and his profound connection to the natural and spiritual landscapes of Saint Barthélemy.

Working in his signature palette of soft beiges, whites, and bold black lines, Matthews transforms canvas into a meditative space where form, light, and emotion quietly intertwine. He imagines sand itself as a language – a shimmering communication carried by light – and his paintings become a “hieroglyphic dance” that translates that poetry into gesture and rhythm.

St Barth has long served as both muse and studio for Matthews. Its light and environment inform the exhibition’s restrained tones and reflective energy. Across these new works, viewers can follow the evolution of his visual language: black outlines that once felt declarative now flow with soft confidence, looping, connecting, and dissolving into the open fields of beige pigment. Each line, though abstract, carries a sense of narrative rhythm, a continuous unfolding of consciousness on linen. 

Victor Matthews Window Snow, 2025 Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 60 in (101.60 x 152.40 cm)

A celebrated contemporary artist, Matthews is known for abstract compositions that balance spontaneity and structure, stillness and movement. His practice blends painting, drawing, and collage, and spans from intimate canvases to large-scale murals. Whether exploring abstraction, subtle narrative motifs, or the spiritual symbols woven into his work, Matthews approaches every piece as a continuous stream of consciousness — a journey into memory, environment, and inner awareness.

Born in Brooklyn of AfricanAmerican heritage, Matthews worked alongside his friends and contemporaries Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Donald Baechler, and Ouattara Watts throughout the 1980s and 90s, and under the tutelage of lifelong mentors Francesco Clemente and Brice Marden to develop his signature style. 

The artist Victor Matthews, immersed in a quiet moment of meditation, shaping his canvas with intention and light.

Matthews’ paintings resist closure. They are not objects to be “read” but spaces to be entered - meditative surfaces where line and tone pulse like waves. The absence of bright color or descriptive form invites contemplation; what remains is essence distilled to its purest expression.
 

The Light of Sand offers not just an exhibition, but an experience: a serene, immersive encounter with an artist who has spent decades refining a language of light, rhythm, and mindful perception.

Victor Matthews Music Sounds Migration Thoughts, 2025, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 in (121.92 x 121.92 cm)

Opening Reception with the Artist
November 28 @6-8pm
Space Gallery St Barth,
Carré D’Or in Gustavia
(between Hermès and Cartier)
+590 690 73 73 57
Hours: Mon-Sat 9-1pm & 4-7pm

Contact info@spacestbarth.com
or follow @spacegallerystbarth
for additional details

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