Dr. Matthew HaleSecurity · AI · Learning · Workforce DevelopmentContact ↗

Beyond the lab

Art and
creative work.

Making things is a thread through my work and my hobbies.

These pieces explore light, patterns, imagined places, and the pleasure of building something by hand. They bring together my interests in art, engineering, data, and storytelling.

A personal collection / Matthew Hale

01 / Collection

Light, form, and possibility.

In art, I want to find truth and communicate contemplation. Most of my charcoal drawings are snapshots of innocence and humanity: quiet moments that invite us to pause, look closely, and recognize something of ourselves.

Drawing and painting 9 works

A monochrome drawing of a child wearing a draped head covering, looking to the right.

Portrait drawing

Innocence in the World

A moment of innocence held still. I want to leave room to contemplate the humanity of a life just beginning to encounter the world.

A monochrome portrait of a person with short dark hair looking directly outward.

Portrait drawing

Curiosity

The quiet openness of wanting to understand. I am interested in the truth that appears in a face before a question becomes words.

A monochrome drawing of a clenched hand with bright knuckles against a dark background.

Hand study

A Moment of Silence

A pause that holds more than words can carry. The hand becomes a place to contemplate the feelings we keep within ourselves.

A monochrome drawing of a reclining figure with light falling across the face, clothing, and hand.

Figure drawing

Quiet Contemplation

I am drawn to the unguarded moments when a person is simply present. Here, stillness offers a glimpse of humanity without the need for explanation.

A pencil drawing of a dog with a collar, surrounded by fragmented shapes and repeated details.

Animal drawing

Negative Space

An exercise in finding truth through what is left open. The spaces around a familiar face ask the viewer to participate in seeing it.

A brown-and-white dog painted in loose washes, with long ears and vertical trails of pigment.

Animal painting

An Exercise in Patience

My art teacher wanted me to “loosen up,” so I painted this upside down with a piece of yarn tied to a yardstick. It became an exercise in patience, letting go of precision, and learning to see differently.

A monochrome figure study of a person standing in profile wearing a long light-colored garment.

Figure drawing

A Look of Love

Love can live in a small, unspoken gesture. I wanted to hold a moment of tenderness still long enough to contemplate it.

A pencil drawing of an animal skull in side view with detailed shading and a cast shadow.

Observational drawing

Structure and Shadow

Looking closely is a way of being honest about what is in front of me. This study asks me to slow down and find beauty in the evidence of a life.

A blue-green still life of upright bottles and a tipped vessel, photographed with visible reflections near the bottom.

Still life

Bottles in Blue

Ordinary objects reward patient attention. I am interested in how contemplation can make something familiar feel newly seen.

Digital artwork 8 works

Ideas at Work was created in Python; the other pieces in this collection were made in Adobe Photoshop.

A circular word cloud in blue, gold, and orange, with lightbulb-shaped negative space and terms from Matthew Hale’s writing.

Python · wordcloud

Ideas at Work

A professional self-portrait in words, programmatically generated from keyword frequencies across my writing. A frequency analysis script examines my written works, and the wordcloud library arranges the keywords on a circular surface around the negative space of a lightbulb.

An orange sun rises through fiery clouds beneath a large clouded moon and a field of stars.

Digital composition

Ascendence

A clouded moon above a populated planet.

A dark planet crosses a brilliant golden flare surrounded by a circular halo.

Digital composition

Eclipse

In the moment of complete eclipse, the ordinary world becomes unfamiliar. I am drawn to that shared stillness: a reminder that even what we trust to be constant asks us to pay attention.

A blue planet and small moon float among stars and pale, flowing clouds of light.

Digital composition

Serenity

A little distance can make room for contemplation. I imagine a quiet place from which to consider the noise of everyday life.

Rainbow-colored columns rise from a glowing curved horizon against black space.

Digital composition

Eclipse: Spectrum

A single edge of light holds many colors. I am interested in how a brief moment can contain more than we first notice.

A blue-black aerial cityscape with the word Singularity spanning the buildings.

Digital composition

The Singularity

Seen from above, a city becomes a pattern. I want to remember the individual lives within it, each carrying a world of thought and feeling.

Multilingual welcome greetings form sunflower petals around a seed head on a green grid.

Digital collage

Welcome: A Fibonacci Sunflower

Many languages offer the same simple invitation. I wanted to bring them together around a living form as an expression of shared humanity and belonging.

A glowing blue Earth against stars, overlaid with translucent imagery and sweeping purple forms.

Digital composition

Worlds Within

Mother Nature calls out to be heard through the noise of the world we have made. I want this image to invite a pause: to listen, and to recognize the living world of which we are a part.

02 / Collection

Built for a shared adventure.

A custom gaming table brings woodworking and electronics into the same project. Follow the build from a pencil sketch to an inset display surrounded by wood, maps, and miniatures.

Hand-drawn gaming table plans on graph paper, showing the screen opening, supports, and cable routes.

01 / The plan

A Place for Adventure

A sketch brings the screen opening, structural supports, power, and cable routes into one design.

1 / 8

03 / Collection

Beauty in data.

Networks have a visual character of their own. These images explore the patterns in social connections, internet infrastructure, and biological interactions.

A pale red network of connections surrounds larger red circular hubs on white.

Internet router network

The Shape of the Internet

A view of publicly known internet routers, rendered as a web of fine connections and red hubs.

Large red nodes and many tiny points connected by overlapping lines in a social network visualization.

Social media clustering · 2018

Social Constellations

A close view of clustering in a social network: dense neighborhoods, prominent hubs, and fine threads.

Dense red lines sweep diagonally between nodes in a social network echo chamber visualization.

Social network visualization

Echo Chambers

Layers of red connections turn a network into an almost woven surface.

Purple threads and yellow nodes form a branching network of yeast protein interactions.

Yeast protein interactions

The Quiet Machinery of Life

A network of protein interactions, with delicate branches and bright points of connection.

04 / Collection

Places for stories to begin.

I’ve hosted two storytelling campaigns in these handcrafted settings within Álfheimr, a world I’ve written and developed over ten years. Through storytelling, I’ve fleshed out its histories, cultures, and many regions, with the people at the table helping turn the maps into shared experiences.

A parchment-style fantasy map of Meropis with islands, mountains, cities, sea routes, and a compass rose.

Fantasy cartography · Campaign two

The Summer Isles of Meropis

The setting for my second campaign opens onto island cultures, competing factions, and lost histories. Beyond the trade routes of the Spice Islands lie the floating stones of Aera and the settlements of Luminaria, carried on the backs of enormous dinosaurs. I built Meropis for collaborative storytelling: players could choose a ship, follow a rumor, and change the course of the story.

A tall fantasy map of Arklan with turquoise seas, a hexagonal grid, mountains, forests, rivers, and settlements.

Fantasy cartography · Campaign one

Arklan

The setting for my first campaign is a continent of ancient elven ruins, distinct city-states, and dangerous wildlands. The lost civilization of the Selu’taar leaves traces of its power across the landscape. Its history continued after the campaign: the party’s choices helped shape the rise of the New Arklan Imperium, becoming part of the world the next campaign inherited.