When I have an idea, it tends to be one I can explore and play out over a series of works. I set simple rules for myself to get started and then gradually learn how to bend and break them. I am not wedded to particular materials or techniques; I tend to work the materials to hand—orthodox or otherwise.
What has emerged over the years is that at root my work is autobiographical, but not in any obvious narrative sense. Interests in place, visual culture, and philosophy colour what I do, but I don’t preconceive a message, rather I allow meaning to develop as I work.
I often include letterforms and words as a visual element and as a gateway into ideas that otherwise might never surface. They introduce a whole other layer of imaginative and connotative possibilities and this dimension is also a bridge, if one were really needed, to my creative writing.
I studied art and design in the mid-70s, in the 80s worked in a national museum, and until 2014 was a university lecturer. Over the years my work has embraced painting, drawing, print, photography, collage, poetry, sound, performance, installation, film and video, all with a dedicated and playful openness to the possibilities of choice material.
Geoffrey Mark Matthews
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