Lecturer BA (Hons) Fine Art, specialising in printmaking, previously working at Kingston University as Stanley Picker Print Fellow, University College Farnham, and at Newlyn School of Art, Penzance.
Hand rendered acid-etched steel sheets line the interiors of an architectural structure entitled Hide: The Apocryphal Archive. This work by Matthew is intended as a monument to displaced people and features imagery of families separated from their photo albums, alongside images of his own family and other individuals who have suffered the hardship of diaspora and the loss of their home.
In the ‘Object to Image’ series Matthew collapses photographic representations with the realities that they depict. This takes the context of installations at architectural folly’s (19th century buildings which are intended to be fake ruins). The view through the archway of the monument is recorded through photography, before being printed 1:1 and installed outside on location.
The print impairs the view to the genuine landscape before being viscerally weathered or at times destroyed by the weather. Ongoing dialogue with artists explores ideas about the ruin and the repurposing of former industrial spaces. This manifested in Unstable Monuments, an Arts Council England funded curation project in Truro, Cornwall, 2016.
Matthew’s current work is focused upon masculine identity, examining how this is constructed and informed by factors such as the media, ancestry, and social pressure.