Matthew is an artist and social entrepreneur, director of Artist Support Pledge, and programme leader on the Turps Off Site mentoring programme. He writes about art, spirituality, endurance running, and building cultures to support artists!
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For a long time, art education seemed suspicious of the very idea of skill. Technique was often dismissed as old-fashioned, while conceptual thinking became the dominant currency. But what if we misunderstood what skill really is? In this essay I argue that skill isn't simply about mastering techniques. It is about cultivating attention. Learning to see. Learning to feel through our materials.…
Painting beyond the eye. Last week I temporarily lost much of my hearing after a sea swim. It wasn't dramatic, just enough to make the world feel strangely muffled and distant. What surprised me was how much it affected my painting. We think of painting as an act of seeing, but those few days reminded me that it depends just as much on listening. Listening to the materials, to the body, to the…
The search for an honest sentence.
Why letting go is a creative act. This week's essay is one that has been quietly forming in the studio over the last few weeks. I've found myself returning to a simple phrase I heard as a child: "Give it up." Back then it meant, "Stop being so stubborn." Now it has taken on a much deeper meaning. Painting continually reminds me that the harder I try to force something into existence, the further…
On presence, slowness and the art of seeing
Why painting begins in faith
The return begins before the work returns.
The conversations that sustain artistic practice
Learning to live with a limp.
How desire shapes creation
