"Keeper" by Matt Priebe
With so many routes and itineraries to fit into the four-hour window that is First Friday, there are some spots that are bound to get overlooked. One such location, Garfield Galleria, is hardly a hole in the wall (it’s actually 12,000 square feet), but its location on McDowell Road and 3rd Avenue is a destination spot, which deters the usual foot traffic from making an appearance.
The arts space is home to 13 different studios of various shapes and sizes — all worth exploring — but Matt Priebe‘s Outside In gallery continually draws attention for its textural, abstract paintings, both simplistic and bursting with expressionism at once.
Priebe, a Phoenician who left the desert for stints in Jerome and Seattle before heading toward the glitz of LA stardom, returned to Downtown Phoenix to further hone his craft after glamorous gigs in the pages of Los Angeles magazine and on the set of HBO’s Entourage, among others. Privately schooled on abstract expressionism in his early years, Priebe draws on much personal experience, using “his vocabulary of color to capture the viewer between twilight and darkness.”
To explore Priebe’s work further, head to the Outside In gallery inside the Garfield Galleria — 316 W. McDowell Rd. #201 (light rail station at Central/McDowell) in Willo.
