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ARTS ON MECHANIC
MATT RINARD
T
The whimsical work of New Orleans
artist Matt Rinard is on display at
Galveston Island’s newest art gallery,
Arts on Mechanic. The 4,500-square foot
gallery is located at 2309 Mechanic St. in
the Downtown Historic District, across
the street from the Tremont House hotel.
“There will be numerous pieces
available at Arts on Mechanic — ‘I’m
Looking for the Man Who Shot My
Paw,’ ‘Wait Until I have My First Bowl of
Coffee,’ ‘Super Pug’ and many others,”
says Rinard, who draws inspiration from
his four-legged menagerie: Sophie, a
Miniature Pinscher; Rosey, a dachshund;
Coco, a Siamese cat; and Pancake Shorty,
“an outside tuxedo feral cat that has
adopted me.”
His beloved dog Sam, also a
Miniature Pinscher, died in May at the
age of 18. “It crushed me. I didn’t know
I was capable of loving that little dog so
much.” Rinard, who described his art as “Post
Pop Art,” studied at the New Orleans
Academy of Fine Art and received a
degree in graphic design from Florida
State in Tallahassee in 1987. Two years
later, he returned to the Academy of Fine
Arts and studied under the tutelage of
Auseklis Ozols, founder of the academy,
where he continues to take classes.
He says the comedic antics of dogs
and cats are “a non-stop source of
information. Their mannerisms, bad
habits — like eating cat turds, rolling on
74 | GALVESTON MONTHLY | JULY 2016
By Donna Gable Hatch
Matt Rinard’s
work is available at
Arts on Mechanic,
2309 Mechanic St. in the
Strand Historic District
on Galveston Island,
as well as at
Gallery Rinard,
located in the historic
French Quarter
of New Orleans.
For more information, visit
galleryrinard.com.
dead things in the park—create so much
fodder for my art.”
In the course of his professional career,
Rinard has worked with many corporate
programs producing artwork for such
mega companies as Southern Comfort
and Budweiser. He also produced a
clothing line with fashion designer
David Dartnell. Darnell’s sportswear
brand, David Dart, was sold at high-end
retailers, including Saks Fifth Avenue,
Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdales.
He also was commissioned by the U.S.
Navy to paint a 24- by 36-inch portrait of
the amphibious combatant LPD 18 made
in Avondale, a shipyard in Louisiana. The
painting was then produced as a limited
edition print and the original hangs in the
Captain’s Quarters of the ship.
“My father was a retired admiral in
the navy who worked as a lobbyist for
the ship building industry in Louisiana,”
Rinard says. “This was a huge contract
they received, and the first one built was
christened at Waldenburg Park, along the
banks of the Mississippi River.”
The Mississippi-born Rinard counts
among his role models American fantasy
and science fiction artist Frank Frazetta;
Neo-Expressionist painter Jean-Michel
Basquiat; Swiss sculptor, painter,
draughtsman and printmaker Alberto
Giacometti; and the late Don Martin, an
American cartoonist best-known for his
work published in Mad magazine.
“I gravitated towards the more