“A conceptual surrealist, I combine technical virtuosity, an inquiring mind and a love of storytelling, to make quirky, often humorous, observations on the world around us. ”
Featured in BRW as one of Australia’s top 50 artists, Matthew Quick began painting as a teenager before being one of the youngest students to study art at the University of South Australia. Upon graduation Quick joined Emery Studio in Melbourne, designing for major corporations such as Rio Tinto, Fosters and BHP.
After a prosperous career in design and advertising and having written a number of fiction books, Quick returned to painting in his mid 30’s. In the past few years he’s won, or been a finalist for, 70 national juried art awards. He’s had 14 solo and more than 80 group shows. His work is included in the permanent collection of Australia’s most significant museum.
CURRENT SERIES
Matthew Quick’s exquisitely created paintings turn a mirror on our contemporary online existence in his latest body of work The Mirror Electric. The artist’s visual commentary drives to the heart of the imagery that populates our social media feeds. Ricocheting from the amusing to the vacuous and absurd, his reading of the new visual shorthand of the online world is as sharp as ever. The mirrored surfaces and the ensuing interplay of one’s own reflection and the rendered surface of the painter’s hand is an immersive experience.
Q&A
What is your ultimate goal for your artwork?
All of the paintings are intended to engage the viewer with a narrative that operates on a number of levels.
At its most basic, it is intended to be intriguing, engaging and, hopefully, beautiful. However, it the viewer chooses to look a little deeper, layers of additional stories are revealed. Upon the combination of title and image, deeper meanings emerge, triggering the opening chapters to an endless array of stories the viewer is invited to create.
What concept or narrative is behind your work
The goal is pursue conceptual ideas that reveal societal issues and contemporary thinking.
This is achieved by subverting symbols images of power with irony and humour. Statues and monuments were my starting point, as they frequently map the rise and fall of Empires with overt symbolism, providing the foundation for a revisionist take on the notions of beauty, pride, and nationalism.
By replacing their crowns and thrones with ordinary objects, the aura of emperors and gods are demoting to powerless nobodies. Through ridicule, I play with their initial grandiose goals, querying their motivations and questioning the orthodoxy of accepted history. In doing so, I reference themes such individual freedom, social control, surveillance, and the deceit of rulers who intentionally fail to act as they speak.