Out/About: Mathew McWilliams ‘After the Storm’
Like relief maps with sonographic hiccups Mathew McWilliams, ‘After the Storm’ series of vivid photographic prints resonate with spiritual clarity. Vibrant, almost Miami in a soft painterly palette, they either electrify or gently pulse from the page.
Paper is subtly caressed into creases or scrunched into deep crevices, photographed and then printed back onto itself, a contemplative conceptual ghost loop. McWilliams feeds his paper through an original 1980’s art printer, the giclee. It was this choice that had a hand in the bleeped outcome, a fine balance was shifted, a miniscule tremor from a big storm misaligning the machine and hence the unpredictability of process was invited.
It’s this acceptance and excitement of flaws that makes this work of McWilliams so endearing. It’s poetically minimal, serene and meditative in its language but beautifully chaotic and labored in its delivery. The only time I find myself empathetic with a printer.
Canadian Parisian, McWilliams show at Chalkhorse Gallery couldn’t feel better timed in Sydney’s volatile season.
Mathew McWilliams
Chalk Horse Gallery
Lower Ground 171 William Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
Thurs – Sat 12-6pm
Or by appointment only
4 February – 5 March 2016
Credits: Images Courtesy of artist Mathew McWilliams and Chalk Horse Gallery
