Laila, Sydney
20 September – 4 October 2024
“Mathews’ works are conjured from the intelligence of clamps, wheels, gates, fences, windows… basically tacit guides for how to move and look. Just like elevator doors (or a gun), their appearance alone implies an action. Mathews’ pieces are handmade and technically functional, but also diagrams - the size of humans; the boiled down ingredients of industrial agriculture and modernist museum design. In all my time in art schools, galleries, and perusing media, work that is most successfully “comprehended” is usually somehow in conversation with a room, approachable by a human. Comprehension of design is a treat and confusion by design is a threat; understand the assignment and get fed. Understand meaning, and get fed. Dwell in not-knowing and receive the stick. I imagine that by the time the human species ends, in some kind of mass-fermentation/ripening event where humans “go off” because of the relentless humidity; such a large portion of the world will be adapted to human dimensions that other aspects of nature will begin to parasitically adapt to them too. Consider the native white Ibis; the bin is a feedlot; a dump is a sanctuary; they scour the city; the city is a dump.”
Link to full text by George Egerton-Warburton
Poster by Stanton Cornish-Ward.
Feeder (child), 2024, powder coated steel and aluminium, 120 x 34 x 34 cm
Feeder (young adult), 2024, powder coated steel and aluminium, 163.4 x 49 x 49 cm
Feeder (senior), 2024, powder coated steel and aluminium, 158 x 60.5 x 60.5 cm
Peak of inflated expectations (snoring, glaring multiples), 2024, hot-dipped galvanised steel, epoxy resin, 106 x 76.5 x 5 cm
Trough of disillusionment, 2024, hot-dipped galvanised steel, epoxy resin, 121 x 62 x 3.5 cm
Plateau of productivity (faceless grazing), 2024, hot-dipped galvanised steel, epoxy resin, 61 x 83 x 5 cm
Carrot or the stick, 2024, photographic prints on adhesive vinyl, 300 x 30 cm each
Photography by Felipe Olivares.