ARTIST PROFILE
MATTHEW ALLEN
MYSTERIOUS AL
Matthew Allen’s latest series delves
deeper into the unique energies
and potentials of graphite. He talks
to Kate Britton.A
ustralian-born, Amsterdam-based
artist Matthew Allen’s latest body of
work is the result of almost two years’
experimentation and refinement. In
that time, not a single piece has left
the studio. The series – showing
concurrently at Auckland Art Fair
2018 and his first solo exhibition with
Auckland’s Fox Jensen McCrory – is
a suite of linen canvases covered in graphite,
which Allen has burnished over a period of weeks,
leaving glimmering silver-grey fields that catch
and play in the light.
“I had a desire to make works which were
reactive to the presence and movement of the
viewer and that were in some way aware of their
environment,” says Allen. These works are not
to be looked at, but into. They seem to look
back at us, to reflect the world around them.
This series also sees Allen move away from the
“hands off ” approach of previous work, such as
his fluid paintings. “I wanted to work in a way
that brought me closer to the material,” he says,
“allowing for a longer time spent engaging with
and coming to an understanding of the unique
energies and potentials of graphite”.
In this series, graphite runs the gamut of its
materiality. Some canvases are burnished to a
hard finish, others take on a soft, feathery quality,
depending on the touch of the artist. “The hand
is discrete but implicated in every process and
layer,” Allen says. “There is an existential quality
that remains once I stop; a trace of being. This
is a quality I strive for in the work. The tension
and connection between the optical and haptic
qualities of the work are vital to its experience.”1