Tag: contemporary art

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new additions

New Additions: After Patrick Heron

I read Jerry Saltz’s article on Jasper Johns which ignited an interest in what Johns is currently doing, leading me to The Works on Paper exhibition currently on the Matthew Arks Gallery website, and a return to looking at my Johns books, with particular interest in the formal aspects of image construction and interplay of colour and object, which activated a link in my mind to a in many ways dissimilar artist in Patrick Heron. I always preferred the more “draughtsmanly(?)” Heron works, but enjoyed the visual vibration of the point where his juxtaposed colours meet. So I wanted to learn a bit about how to build high chromatic interesting fields by making drawings after and inspired by Heron’s 60s/70s era. Learning by drawing. Call me “Matt-Rick Heron”.

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in focus

In Focus: Cleithrophobia

Cleithrophobia, 10x7cm, ink on card, £20

“Cleithrophobia” (10x7cm) is a fear of being trapped. When insurmountable stress and anxiety gathers we can often see no way forward or out of a situation and dwelling on the issues at hand creates self perpetuating concentric circles of suffering.

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new additions

New Additions

3 Small drawings on card added today. Featured in the group of drawings titled “Age of Anxiety” on http://www.aportablegallery.wordpress.com

  • Cleithrophobia
  • Miasma
  • Stress thoughts
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new additions

New additions: Elvis Impersonator Blackpool Pier

Three studies for a painting inspired by the Manic Street Preachers song “Elvis Impersonator Blackpool Pier”.

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in focus

In Focus: A Mother Suffers With Her Son no.1

One of a 3 part series combining elements from art historical images of Christ and the Virgin Mary in montages with other layered found elements such as flowers and drapery.

Oil on canvas, 23 x 30.5cm, £100
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in focus

In Focus: You Can’t take it with you

Around 2009 I began experimenting with Photoshop as a means to develop a more experimental approach to composition and colouring, that was not so much reliant on the strictures of reality. The digital montages I produced often served as a model for painting. My aim was not to replicate a smooth photographic surface, but to treat the montage as any other 3D subject to work from.

  • You can’t take it with you (blue)
  • You can’t take it with you (green)

My thematic approach to building these images was based on the still life tradition, particularly memento mori. The two paintings in focus here were based on combining found images of skulls with my own photographs of coins, illustrating the anti-hoarder maxim of “you can’t take your money with you when you die”.

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new additions

Paintings added

The following paintings have been added to the gallery of available artwork. These paintings were produced during a period where I would combine found images to suggest new meanings and narratives, replicating elements of digital image manipulation by hand such as layering and transparency.

Email matthewgwells@outlook.com with any enquiries.

  • Debord, oil on canvas, 30 x 30cm
  • Melancholy, oil on canvas, 30 x 30cm
  • Fertility and decay, oil on canvas, 30 x 30cm
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in focus

In Focus: Cannibalising Courbet #3

The first of a new category of blog post, in which an available painting is picked out for discussion.

Cannibalising Courbet 3, 30 x 30cm, £125

Around 2016 I began a series of paintings combining elements of Courbet paintings into new compositions, and borrowing his motifs but recasting myself into the title role.

On the one hand this was a concerted effort to learn about the artists method of constructing images, from composition to lighting, tonality and colour, but was also a means of using previously existing imagery to construct a new narrative.

Very often I would choose a Courbet painting featuring one or more women, and combine it with a self portrait. This evokes themes of lust, longing and romance, but also the relationship but artist and model.

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Uncategorized

First Sale

Delirium Dreams is no longer available, thank you to Robert, I hope you enjoy

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Uncategorized

Welcome

This site documents artworks from my archive which are currently available to purchase directly from my studio. 

In the spirit of The Artists Support Pledge founded by artist Matthew Burrows during the COVID 19 pandemic, no works will be priced higher than £200, and when £1000 of sales has been reached, I will pledge to purchase an artwork by another artist participating in the artist support pledge. This site will also feature a gallery of work purchased through the pledge, as they are made.

Please send me an email with any enquiries to:

matthewgwells@outlook.com

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