Press Release

MOTINTERNATIONAL LONDON is pleased to present The Patterns of Fur and Themes of Still and Running Water an exhibition of recent works by newly represented artist Simon Mathers. This will be the first major solo exhibition of his works in the UK.

Mathers graduated from the Royal College of Art with an exhibition of subliminally concise paintings, sumptuous and almost liquid grounds suspending economic calligraphic gestures. Since leaving, Mathers has continued to explore and expand his processes and modes of production. He uses abstraction as a tool, enabling him to work with images on a plane that is not indebted to figuration but rather, a plane in which figuration, colour, surface, texture and mark-making might be concurrently explored.

Varnish prepared grounds achieve lucent effects, while foregrounded strokes become shorthand for landscapes, or the details of hair; forms that often gesture to a fragmentary imprint of what they might depict, rather than absolute portraiture. Frequently, images appear half-remembered or partly-translated, with the simplicity of his marks withholding as much as they reveal. Having a viscosity of form and surface, Mathers experimental techniques create colourings in which pooled materials are cut with solvent lines.

Simon Mathers lives and works in London. Selected previous exhibitions include Midsummer Opening, Pilar Corrias, London; Poisson d’Avril, Vous Etes Ici, Amsterdam; The Salon of the Vernacular, Fishmarket Gallery, London; 2010, MOT International, London; The Drifting Canvas, Curated by Robin Footitt and Tom Cole, Cole Contemporary, London.