Art Works: Matt Jordan

I’ve been painting for about 25 years, mainly working with recycled or second-hand materials. Taking something that has been discarded or broken and giving it a new identity is the starting point for a piece of work. 

This piece is titled Round and round the garden, like a ? It has the feeling of a busy garden in the summer when I was a child - just full of colours, shapes and patterns. As the piece is painted on a clear sheet of perspex, this allowed me to paint on both sides, giving the layering of the patterns and colours a certain distance between the surfaces. This has given me a whole new material to explore in my future work. 

The biggest challenge came with composition and finding a balance of colour and image. I work on a piece until I feel comfortable with the overall feel of it. I feel the stopping of a painting is just as important as starting one.           

I’ve recently been working on producing designs for a range of t-shirts for the record label Work Room. Alongside this, I’ve been painting for the Spit and Sawdust pop-up gallery on Mansfield Road, taking on private commissions and sending sold work as far afield as Seattle. The show is quite an exciting new home for a work that started life in my Sherwood studio at home. It’s really exciting to be part of this, and I look forward to working with Kid30, its proprietor, on some future projects. 

I’m hoping that the pop-up nature of the space there will appeal to other artists in the region. Kid30 and I are always excited to collaborate with other like-minded folk, so hopefully this is just the beginning of a new creative journey. If anything is a canvas, then anywhere can be a gallery.

[email protected]
mjart1@googlemailcom