Abstract expressionist offers Chichester exhibition

“I’m a self-taught abstract painter from Chichester,” Matthew explains. “I started painting as an outsider abstract expressionist. I was like that for about ten years during which I destroyed everything I did, never showed anyone my art and had no interest to engage with the art world. Slowly over the years the paintings would hang around longer and I was painting more often. I then finally showed someone my art and that's when I found out I had been painting abstract expressionism for all those years. As I started to look more at the art world, I began to move away from abstract expressionism and moved more into abstract portraits, figures and landscapes. I still think there are some aspects of abstract expressionism in some of my art but I always find it interesting to push my art in other directions and challenge myself to paint in new ways. I feel the most important characteristic of my art is within the abstract itself. It’s such a huge topic and there are endless ways of going about it. I never want to say to myself ‘That will do.’ I never want to settle on a process. I always want to push my art further and further into abstraction in any way I can.

“I'm very passionate about the exploration of abstract art. It’s my primary focus and for me that lies in abstract thought and being abstract minded. If I can push those ideals and then have that pave the way for the art, I believe I can keep progressing as an artist and more intense and interesting art will follow. I deal mainly with minimalism, colour and layering, I explore these elements in all my paintings and challenge myself to change any perceptions I may have formulated from my previous finished artworks. Within art I'm strictly just a painter. I don't touch anything else other than oils and acrylics, primarily from brush work and some palette knife. For me I feel that it’s all I need in order to create. The physical act of painting is a passion, and as a craft it’s always engaging to keep going with my techniques, to refine them and to push them past any limits. I would really like to either confuse or intrigue people with my art. It’s hard to say as I think you should just let the art be and let people interact with it in any way they wish. The art that is there is a mixture as I like to paint lots of different subjects in as many ways as possible.”