About the artwork

This new series of works from artist Matthew Smith consist of crudely made, unglazed, rectangular forms, the joins and seams of which are visible, messy.  Cleaner formed, glazed elements make a kind of surface to them, perhaps as paint forms the surface of stretched canvas, but here the coloured lines and coils reveal the structure that holds them in place, and the nail that secures it to the wall.

Smith likes the appearance of glazed and unglazed surfaces together, that the firing process brings to life.  The kiln pulls the work together, tightens it into a form that is coherent, disposed and perverse. 

Smith approach to their work is a fairly instinctive process, led by materials, activity and oblique references, but they also think that the ceramic works are, on some level, a deconstruction of painting, or perhaps what it means to hang art on a wall in general.

About the artist

Matthew Smith (b. 1976, Staffordshire, UK) lives and works in London.  Smith graduated with an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins in 2005.  Solo exhibitions include: Pussycat, Koppe Astner, Glasgow (2016), Fat Tulip, Troy Town, London (2015), OFF, Limoncello, London (2012) and White Columns, New York (2008).  Group shows include: Meltdown, Ridley Road Project Space, London (2022), Working / Not Working, Canada Gallery, New York (curated by Matt Connors, 2017) and SEPTIC FINGER, Carl Kostyal, Sweden (with George Henry Longly and Nicolas Deshayes, 2014)