Matthew Hawtin

 

 

 







My work involves the use of custom-built stretcher frames with varying depths at each corner. Depending on the measurements of each frame the surface of the canvas changes in different degrees of subtlety thus creating a new picture plane quite unlike the usual flatness of the painting surface.

Influenced by architecture as much as by literature, films and other experiences, I am trying to translate those feelings that occur during certain moments into something visual. The colours I choose are reflective of the emotions used to ‘build’ each work and are applied systematically to achieve an overall uniformity so all that remains is a pure colour with no surface distractions.

The titles entice the viewer further within each piece, and are there to dismiss any notions that the works are merely colourfields or non-objective. They are there to suggest ‘something’, and to create a certain atmosphere where the paintings can exist: between a point of knowing and not knowing, of being on the cusp of clarity and obscurity.

Standing between a history of art that chooses to interpret works as either objects or subjects these paintings converge at the intersection of two thoughts. The works exist as pure formal objects yet are imbedded with the emotional residue of the perceptual experience.

Torqued Paintings 97-99