Larry Groff interviews Matthew Lopas about his panoramic paintings on the occasion of an exhibition of his work at Narthex Gallery at Saint Peter’s Church, New York, on view from May 17 – June 19, 2013.

Asked about painting panoramic views Lopas answers: "The conventional viewfinder produces wonderful compositions, but it is always at a distance from the viewer. I find its frame limiting and alienating. In fact, our field of vision is much wider than the perspectival conventions originating in the Renaissance. My images are truer to the actual experience of what it is like to be in the world rather than to look at the world. A radically expanded field of view enables a profound intimacy with the real act of looking and creates an unmediated gaze of empathic seeing."