You Are Forgiven provides a vivid retrospective of the past several years of Leines’ detail obsessed and process-driven work. Through his graphic and illustrative techniques, Leines blends imagery from his suburban American youth with iconographic visual traditions from far-flung civilizations and traditions, creating a highly original, modern psychedelic stew. You Are Forgiven offers an in-depth look into the world of Matt Leines, beautifully assembling his diverse and intricate body of work into a lavish hardcover book.

“… Matt is mapping the collective art of a non-existent tribe in a no-mans-land far away. Exotic and invincible. A magnanimous people, yet possessed of a fierce and independent spirit, forged and tempered by age after age of adversity or calm, calamity and advantage. Centuries of plenty and eons of famine – everlasting warfare and subterfuge. Maybe he will tell us everything about these nations and maybe not. Yet, we can learn much about them by observing the artifacts produced by so great and tenacious peoples.” –Gary Panter

“… Matt is relentlessly inventing extraordinary characters and the scenarios that envelop them. The imagery has the strangely familiar look of medieval or archaic artwork. But as much as it appears to have been unearthed in some archeological dig in the ruins of an ancient lost civilization wrought with mysterious powers and gods, very little of it is directly referencing any specific historical artworks or imagery. The intricate line work and patterning lends a timeless quality which is then shaken up by a clash with subject matter that seems to reference multiple times and dimensions.” –Taylor McKimens