Matt Bell

I am currently focused on painting. My paintings develop through doing more. The thinking is done primarily in front of the canvas and the actions are attempts to describe the thoughts. I approach the canvas with only a vague plan in mind, the plan shifts as the painting develops… reflection occurs somewhere between painting bouts. The tools are the same building blocks that formal painting has employed infinitum; the combinations of colour, line and shape are limitless. When I was at art school in the 80’s, painting was claimed by many, to be dead; everything had apparently been done. Perhaps it had… but certainly not by me. Consequently I continue to paint in order understand my relationship to myself, the world… and to the act of painting itself. I love the texture and innate expressive quality of oil colour and its respective mediums. The paintings are currently deconstructed narratives, reshaped to fit within a pictorial context… the paintings are as much about the nature and making of paintings as they are about personal narratives. This is important as it gives the viewer the ability to access the paintings with more freedom.

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