November 5 - 28, 2026
First Thursday Art Walk - Thursday November 5th, 5-8pm
Artist Reception - Saturday November 7th, 4-6pm
Light settles into metal the way a dream lingers after waking. These patina works mark the signs of arriving somewhere inward: ease, recognition, elements falling into place. Some sounds are heard only after they pass. Come and listen for what returns.
Nirvana Rebirth, brass electric patina, 18 × 24
Artist Statement
An echo is heard after its sound has passed. You catch the return, and you know a source exists, though you cannot see it.
These works come from a quiet inner space that feels less like a new place than a remembered one. Some dreams feel this way: set outside ordinary time, and still about your life.
There is nothing here you need to understand. Stay with a piece as long as it holds you. Move, and in some pieces you can watch the color move with you.
People who arrive in that inner space often recognize it afterward, by small signs:
Things become easy.
Elements fall into place without being arranged.
Something feels familiar, though you cannot say from where.
Time loosens.
You feel free to make something.
You may notice one of these, several, or none. Whatever you carry out of the room is yours. Listen for it later. Echoes return.
About the artist
Matthew Behrend lives in Seattle. Each work begins as a form seen in meditation and recorded as an ideogram. He shapes electric fields into that form, and the field imprints it into the metal itself. He invented this medium, electric patina, and considers each piece co-created with forces outside the typical range of perception. An electrical engineer, he did his PhD research on the neural interface for the first FDA-approved retinal implant, built to restore sight to the blind.