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Matt Arbuckle 'Triassic-Jurassic'

Matt Arbuckle
TRIASSIC-JURASSIC
4 February - 11 March 2023

Matt Arbuckle’s practice is a process-driven exploration of place, bridging the notions of landscape with the languages of abstraction. He manipulates the fundamentals of scale, format, composition, material, colour and mark making to produce sculptural paintings that are large, vigorous and bold. Challenging the concept of space both metaphorically and physically, he imbues his paintings with complex and emotional narratives, evocative of a sense of the concrete and of the conceptual. Recently, Arbuckle has used elements of traditional Japanese shibori dyeing techniques to create compositions by wrapping, twisting, folding and draping fabric over found surfaces and structures. The resulting paintings use depth and movement to trace and reveal abstract memories, imprinting the experience of place into the artwork.

In Arbuckle’s work the map is upended, folded open, the surface grazed, the content ghostly and stained. The map is laid on the ground where it abrades with the earth it describes. It collects debris - grit and dust and the accretions of time, layers of paint and the pressings of each moment folded in on itself. In doing so, the map begins to hold its own terrain, the tracings of negative space begin to form their own whole.
— Emily Cormack

Matt Arbuckle, Deep Lake, 2022, 120 x 200cm

Matt Arbuckle, Deep Lake, 2022, 120 x 200cm (detail)

Matt Arbuckle, Deep Lake, 2022, 120 x 200cm (detail)


INSTALLATION VIEWS

Photography: Andrew Curtis

EXHIBITED WORKS