No Ordinary Things brings together, for the first time, a collection of paintings spanning the past decade by Baltimore artist Matt Klos. Focusing on his native landscape of working-class Baltimore neighborhoods, Klos’ work offers a poetic examination of the quotidian beauty of his everyday surroundings, both interior and exterior. Klos’ work, as if speaking through time, continues the tradition of artists inspired by the idea of “the local,” championed by the poet William Carlos Williams. Williams, who coined the term “no ideas but in things” in a poem in 1944, believed that the role of the artist is to pay deep attention to the things right in front of them, no matter how mundane or ordinary they may appear to others. This philosophy of celebrating the blue-collar fabric of American life led to Williams’ epic poem, Paterson, which altered the course of American poetry and defined a new movement in the arts that continues today. In the paintings presented here, Klos applies this method through keen observations of the subtleties of light and a masterful rendering of tonality. The result is a series of works that feel like universal memories, allowing viewers a personal connection with intimate spaces that could be their own. In this way, No Ordinary Things offers a contemporary response to the landscape paintings in From Sea to Shining Sea, reminding us that the grandeur of our everyday world can be just as extraordinary as the untamed landscapes that inspired artists of the past.