Artist Registry
The White Columns Curated Artist Registry is an online platform for emerging and under-recognized artists to share images and information about their respective practices. The Registry seeks to create a context for artists who have yet to benefit from wider critical, curatorial or commercial support. To be eligible, artists cannot be affiliated with a commercial gallery in New York City.
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STATEMENT OF WORK
My name is Matthew Clarke I live in South West Victoria(at the end of the Great Ocean Road) in Australia. I am an artist with an intellectual disability and I live with mental illness. I have been drawing ever since I can remember and I have been painting for 19 years. My work is influenced and inspired by the people around me(see portraits). I have long running themes of portraits, wallabies(kangaroos), wind farms, landscapes and cityscapes.
My wallabies are made out of three quarters of an inch ply wood. I draw the works, my dad/prime carer cuts them out of ply wood, makes a slot in the back that the tails fit into turning them into 3D and then I paint them.
I draw everyday(see my instagram account) and I am painting weekly.I post most days on instagram. I like to travel, see art and meet other artists. I travel with my dad/prime carer and often with my sister as well or another carer. I think my most enjoyable project was painting a street mural in Adelaide, South Australia (see film) or my first mini exhibition within the Vocational Education student exhibition in 2006(after only a few months at a main stream art school).
I am proud to be a local artist in Warrnambool, a town of 32,000 people.
I am also proud to be an Australian artist painting Australian themes and my Australian heros. I am proud to be in the 2021 Archibald prize ( Australia's leading art prize) .It is exciting having my work in the Art Gallery of New South Wales and been choosen out of 938.
Matthew was chosen to exhibit his linocut in the National Gallery of Victoria for the Melbourne Now Exhibition in 2023.
I am proud to be in the 2024 Darling Portrait Prize .It is exciting having been choosen in top 24 Finalist out of 1000 entries in The National. Portrait Gallery of Australia
Seeing myself as a national artist as well as a local artist sits well with me and I would like to have an exhibition in New York.
I have been described by others as a naive artist with firey brush strokes. I think I was destined to be an artist with or without disability.
instagram @matthewclarke86_art