The work of Matthew Wesley Mahoney

Theory is myth.
Art is myth.

I’m an Autistic art historian, artist, educator, and activist. My work connects Surrealism, mythology, neurodiversity, art history, and public memory. Exploring mythology, art, and ideas to understand our world—and ourselves.

Explore the work

ANCIENT STORIES. MODERN MEANING.

Matthew Mahoney’s intricate blue composition of imagined creatures, geometric forms, and personal symbols — From the visual archiveMatthew Mahoney · Codex Alchemicum · Blue

Scholarship in public

In conversation
with the archive.

Salvador Dalí’s The Golden Age, from the Hallie Ford Museum of Art collection — Salvador Dalí, *The Golden Age*, 1957. Hallie Ford Museum of Art.

Research · Curation · Publication

Dalí’s Dialogues

Five print portfolios. A museum exhibition. A conversation between images and the texts that inspired them.

My presidential scholarship project brought together archival research, photography, translation, and interpretation to make the portfolios accessible as books.

Read the essay & explore the exhibition Open the five catalogues →

The podcast · Episode 04

A path through
the labyrinth.

Greek myth, sacred architecture, poetry, psychoanalysis, and an original metaphor for Autistic experience.

Listen to Labyrinths & Mazes Browse all five episodes

Inside the studio

Interior worlds,
made visible.

“My drawings have intense colors and strong composition and include words as forms and collage, sometimes destroying old sketches to include in new pieces.”

View the art & design archive

Matthew Mahoney smiling in front of a brick wall

The person behind the work

It began with
an imaginary island.

In elementary school, I drew maps of Kidsvania, invented gods and monsters, and made zines under the imprint Matthew Mythology Press. The name stayed as my world expanded into art history, museums, teaching, and activism.

Read my story, in my own words