An ongoing work in oil and collage on panel
Tag: Painting
I was invited by Moray Art Centre to submit work for their Christmas exhibition which is a showcase of recent graduates.
A selection from my series of watercolour illustrations inspired by Manic Street Preachers album “Everything Must Go” are included, and are on view until 20th Jan.
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John Kinross Scholarship
I’m pleased to announce that I am one of the recipients of this years Royal Scottish Academy ‘John Kinross Scholarship’.
This enables me a grant to study in Florence for a period up to 12 weeks. I intend to visit next summer, primarily to study frescoes, any Caravaggio I can lay my beady eye on and, hopefully, old master drawings- drawing being very much at the root of my practice.
November also saw the presentation of the Gray’s Postgraduate showcase “Onwards” at the Look Again project space in Aberdeen.
For this curated presentation of the MA course, the work of mine selected was the triptych. “An Amicable Separation”, gouache, watercolour, acrylic .
The last (for now?…) studies influenced by songs from the Manic Street Preachers album “Everything Must Go” have been added to the gallery page: https://mattwells.art.blog/narrative-painting/portfolio/
Below are a few of them.
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From the archive
“We’re all in the same boat, but some of us aren’t getting our feet wet”, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 60cm
This study for a larger painting was painted a couple of Prime Ministers ago, during the reign of David Cameron. An allegory of class disparity.
And the 70 x 100cm painting it spawned, which is difficult to get a photo of due to reflections on the dark paint.
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Landscape Gallery
As part of my practice I sometimes make landscape studies. The reasons vary from documenting the passage through time and space (in my walking drawings), sourcing potential locations and elements for inclusion as setting for later narrative works, to the enjoyment of applying paint to mimic colour combinations, texture and interesting lighting effects.
I have added a gallery here and otherwise stated all works are available. Enquiries can be made to matthewgwells@outlook.com
The first series added consists of 25 studies of the Moray coastline painted in acrylic on card, around A5 size.
Around 2018 I embarked on a project producing drawings and paintings illustrating scenes inspired by Patrick Suskind’s novel “Perfume, the story of a murderer”.
The novel centres around an orphan named Grenouille who has a highly developed olfactory sense, despite possessing no odour of his own. His search for containing fragrance results in depraved activities culminating in mass murder.
All paintings are available unless otherwise stated, email: matthewgwells@outlook.com
The hermit 
A new man 
We’ll make you a new man 3 
We’ll make you a new man 2 
We’ll make you a new man 1
Watercolour and ink on canvas, each £60
The largest painting (below) was damaged and subsequently destroyed, however it is available in digital form as an NFT, both static, in various stages of disintegration or as an animated gif. Available from Opensea.io
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Allegorical Paintings
Painted during my MA studies at Gray’s, Here is a series of Paintings combining elements from historical paintings, particularly still life and genre scenes such as Dutch “Merry Company” paintings, with imaginary elements and found images of contemporary political figures and animals. The intention or meaning of the resulting image is reliant on the links made by the viewer between the various symbolic elements, so that I have composed and drafted the image but the viewer writes the story using the clues to build the narrative.
Each is created using acrylic, ink and varnish on paper collaged onto canvas.
Each painting is available to purchase, email me matthewgwells@outlook.com with expressions of interest.
Land of no milk or honey, 30 x 30cm £100 
In bad company, 30 x 42cm, £120 
A few bad apples, 42 x 30cm, £120 
A merry revolutionary, 30 x 30cm, £100 
Betrayal of Britannia, 30 x 30 cm, £100 
Wolf of Westminster, 30 x 30cm, £100 
Brexit butcher of Britain, 30 x 42cm, £120
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The Hermit
In 2018 I produced a series of drawings and paintings inspired by Patrick Suskind’s famous novel “Perfume”, centering around its protagonist Jean-Baptiste Grenouille; an orphan with a highly developed olfactory sense, who emits no odour of his own.
The largest painting in the series was a 100 x 150cm canvas of Grenouille as a hermit. This finest of pointing was damaged and subsequently destroyed, so all that remains of the IMAGE is a photograph.
The 1/1 NFT of this photograph is available to own in the absence of the physical object.
The hermit is accompanied by an animated gif showing digital destruction of an image and its reappearance, with states of disintegration chosen as images in their own right.
Available to buy on Opensea
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In Focus: Clavie painting from 2007
Recently unearthed whilst emptying out my studio, here’s “Burning of the Clavie, Burghead” 2007Oil on canvas, 70 x 50cm
Depicting the traditional Burghead New Years ceremony of “Burning the Clavie” in which a barrel loaded with wooden stakes and tar is set a light and paraded through the village on the 11th January, before being placed atop a local hill where more tar is thrown on, causing fireballs to shoot into the sky. The stakes from the Clavie are said to bring luck for the year ahead.
This painting is signed “WELLS 2007” on the reverse, and was displayed in the 2007 Moray Arts Club exhibition, where it received a commendation.
This painting currently available on eBay HERE
Matt Wells Art 