Rutgers student looks to blend art and journalism in life

Junior Matt Gamble sits at his desk, paper and pencil at his disposal, and draws. The scene changes every time.

One moment, the setting is an open frontier, amid space or some otherworldly venture. The next, it is a dream and packed within are people from every part of his life.

Gamble’s drawings are more than just a form of self-expression; they are an extension of self from one segment of his life to the next. He has been writing since he could walk and talk, he says, and imagining a world without his thoughts spilled out on canvases would be a world not worth much.

While some use hobbies to simply supplement their true ambitions in life, he blurs the lines between hobby and profession, seeking to use his artistry to blaze a path for himself going into the world of journalism.

“I do not want to limit myself,” Gamble said. “I definitely want to work with arts and culture, either on the print or visual side.”

A Journalism & Media Studies at Rutgers University, Gamble has broadened his appeal to potential employers, continuing his artwork while also taking classes that will further his skills as a writer and a journalist.

And that artwork is primarily continues on Instagram. Any budding artist needs to be able to showcase his portfolio, and with social media dominating the world today, the options for how art is presented has opened up. Instagram is integral for artists to not only bring their art to more eyes than their own but also gain a following.

He goes by the @dagamblingman on Instagram, and he uses the platform to toss his pieces out there to see if it sticks, using the comments and likes as measures of their appeal.

The substance of his work varies across a number of themes and mediums, so they strike different emotions and responses from different people.

“I try to do a lot of different things,” Gamble said. “I sketch, paint, work with colored pencil and watercolor and I am also learning more and more about digital art.”

With this, Gamble puts a lot of his focus on people, specifically people of color, and their emotions. He draws upon dreams he has had and ideas of the open frontier as basis for the settings of his pieces.

But he does not draw upon dreams. Much of Gamble’s artwork is based on his personal life, and he uses the people he knows and the feelings they represent as inspiration.

Aside from his personal life, he cites reading and listening to music as essential to his artistic process, as they provide a good deal of influence as well. Specifically, his favorite book is “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut and his favorite music consists of a lot of work from the 60s and 70s.

A Manchester Township native who now resides in New Brunswick, Gamble uses every facet of his life as fuel for his artwork. Whether it is a chance conversation he had on a Rutgers bus, a particular line he drew from a novel, or the general aura a friend or family member gives off, he will draw it.

And whether Gamble pursues art as a career is neither here nor there. Wherever he ends up, drawing will always be a part of his life, because as far-reaching as his creativity may be, he cannot imagine a world without art.