Carp Matthew
London, Bromley, United Kingdom
About Carp Matthew
My work is about nothing. It is about yearning. It is about the lunatic pursuit of purpose and meaning, in empty spaces and dead ends, in brain-bending fantasy and fanatic ideology, be it religious, political, occult or otherwise. It is about hiding and lying and the myth of progress.
The figures I paint are lost, in rooms without doors and voids without walls, beyond the vaguest glimmer of reality with no hope of return, exactly as they would wish it were they ever again able even to perceive the notion. They are symbolic of this moment, its total capitulation to impenetrable narcissism and shameless indulgence of base instinct oblivious to consequence, to the hell-bent suicide of consumer capitalism, their mutations manifestations of dying spirit and sickness of soul, of their owners repressed fears, inadequacies, distant desires and inescapable solitude. They long for what they can never have without deceiving themselves. Worse than tragic, their movements are meaningless.
My work is a meditation on this predicament, every piece either an attempted exorcism of futility or a desperate grasping at fleeting beauty and momentary loss of self-conciousness to said pleasure. A tangible solidification of the creeping nihilism that permeates every atom of this age, it is a view of life as mere spectacle or aimless chaos and an exploration of the minds ceaseless rejection of such. And ultimately it is about how it feels to exist without faith in anything beyond love.
My work is about nothing.
Education:
BA Hons Graphic Design - Staffordshire University.
No formal art training.
Events:
Selected bibliography:
Society 6 - Art Quarterly book No.2.4, Autumn 2017.
Dead-End Chaos journal of drawing, issue 1, summer 2017.
Art School - The Raritan Gallery, issue 1, summer 2017, USA.
Milkfist Magazine, Untitled, Issue two, Winter 2016, USA.
Brut Magazine, Oddity, Issue five, Summer 2016, UK.
Meghan O’Gieblyn, Hell; The new strategy for dealing with damnation, The Point Magazine, Issue nine, Winter 2015, Canada.
The Mankind Diary, Round six, September 2015, Australia.
Lamono Magazine, Issue forty two, April 2008, Spain.
Exhibitions:
Selected recent exhibitions:
2017 - The Other Art Fair Autumn edition, Old Truman Brewery, London.
2017 - The Other Art Fair Spring edition, Victoria House, London.
2017 - Pancakes and Booze Art Show, London Studio Spaces E1.
2016 – Creative Debut’s Showcase, The Black and White Building, Shoreditch, London.
2015 – Proparty, The Winter Salon, Notting Hill, London.
2014 – Manor House Art Show at the Inhouse Film Festival, Manor House, London.
2012 – Don’t Follow Leaders, Birmingham Central Library.
2011 – Various Bastards, Chameleon Gallery, Walsall.
