Matt has been painting and drawing for as long as he can remember, leaning towards drawing in past years, concentrating on buildings and animals, with many private commissions for pets.

More recently Matt has returned to painting, with a far more abstract feel and with a desire to produce large works incorporating form and structure. His desire to just get the paint on the canvas creates the initial piece, evolving and working it into something that inspires, which invariably means painting over the bits that don’t. The subsequent pieces become heavily layered, and rather than just giving a feeling of depth, the potential narrative is there for all to see. Unifying the paintings is the link between the massive and the microscopic, and that both can be presented in a single work.

Purple Rectangles 4 / Cutouts

The concept of Purple Rectangles 4 is that it changes the closer you get; new colours, shapes, textures and shadows keep appearing. The multidimensional aspect of the work is enhanced by the cutout: the subsequent shadow alters the face of the painting depending on your viewing angle, giving it real movement. It also allows Matt to keep a part of the work; some semblance of jurisdiction over a painting that once gone is no longer in his control. This fragment can in turn become the basis of a new painting, and therefore suggest that the original itself was a cutout, remarking on the nature of creativity and inspiration.

Threads

Exploration in 2022 lead Matt to further investigate relationships between nature and human constructs. Further to the Cutout works and Matt’s interest in human choices, control and perceived jurisdiction over creation, the Threads series continues his depiction of the link between microscopic biological events and global natural phenomena. Evolving from images of blood clots – the beneficial or malignant outcome of which is entirely dependent on their location in the body – the paintings show such a life saving/taking cellular process, represented by the Threads, but also on a macroscopic level; the seditious nature of nature towards the greatest of human endeavours, or the reclamation of its own land following incursion by us, represented by the plastic squares entwined in the threads of paint.

Charcoals

The Charcoal works incorporate crushed charcoal mixed with glue. Matt makes the fire with kindling and wood from his garden, douses it with water once the logs have become black, thus creating his own charcoal. He then crushes it into coarse pieces or further grinds it into powder depending on the effect he wants to create. Matt has been able to further explore his relationship with nature and its perceived waste via these works.

Woodworks

The theme above has further developed into recent 3D work and sculpture, using found wood to create various abstract forms, a fake or false tree, and question if this is where we will end up in years to come, when all natural resources are depleted.

Parallel to that has been the development of functional wooden objects; shelves, small tables, gardening tools, all made from found wood; and plant pots, filling the splits in the wood with the same charcoal/PVA glue mix used in the paintings. The pots have been made without a lathe, using just a drill, chisel and sandpaper, and then oiled.

Commissions for larger abstract paintings, functioning and non-functioning woodwork and drawings of animals and pets are welcomed and a bespoke price can be discussed on enquiry.