Matthew is drawn to objects that don’t seem to have any obvious meaning, taking mundane objects as the source material for his works on canvas. As you look, the banality gives way and is replaced by a profound, absurd and unsettling beauty. At the same time, the painting is struggling to take on an object quality of its own, to become a thing in the world and not simply an area where objects are described. The abstract and descriptive qualities develop in tandem, sometimes working together, sometimes against one another. As it develops the painting continually shifts and changes, often radically, until, at some point, it no longer seems arbitrary but as if it is the way it was always meant to be.
Vault Sixteen – Hidden Door Festival 2014
Matthew presented a series of paintings at the first Hidden Door. From signs, to sinks, taps, and toothbrushes the paintings energised the vaults, speaking of their original form both in terms of the painting’s composition and the environment in which they were situated; Matthew drew parallels between the forces of nature that have worked upon both objects of commodity and the decomposing histories of the vaults.