2:46pm Wednesday 28th July 2010
By Helen Peacocke
One of the exhibitions on show at the Jam Factory, in Park End Street, is an artist’s exploration of the limits of emotion and the capabilities and confinements of the soul.
Matt Smith has chosen the title Lost in Shadows for this one-man exhibition, which consists of portraits — of women, mainly — painted in acrylic, many of which are highlighted with dashes of gold.
These are not happy portraits — indeed there is an absence of rapture in these works which ignore the joys of life and depict solitude, grief and vulnerability instead. Haunted eyes look out from the canvas as if seeking something that will never be found.
Matt says: “In my works of art I try to give paintings a depth, something more meaningful than just what is seen at face value. Quite often my work is focused around the human psyche as I try to project a state of mind.”
He admits he is willing to allow himself to be seduced by the darker side, as he finds the darkness of the human mind intriguing.
Take his picture Lost Hope, for example (see above). Here he offers us a woman looking up towards what appears to be a dove which bleeds thin ribbons of gold from its wings as it flies out of the canvas. Deep scratch marks, suggestive of barbed wire, cut across the canvas, indicating that the woman might be trapped, as hope flies away, leaving her alone in the darkness.
Two of the women he has depicted bear the marks of a keyhole in the forehead, but do not offer a key that would open the mysteries of all that lies beyond. In It’s Not Always Rainbows he has placed a butterfly on the canvas next to a woman who is looking at or for something, but nothing gives us a clue as to what.
The Jam Factory is an excellent place to display these works which are not easily understood unless the viewer takes time to penetrate their meaning.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/trade_directory/