Project Description

Matt Saunders scuttles boundaries between media to make works that balance
between the painted and the photographic. He begins with traditional materials
oil paint on stretched linen – then uses these paintings as ‘negatives’ to expose
photosensitive paper. Light passes through the various materials for a range of
effects. Painted forms and the structure of the linen support are conflated while the
vagaries of the darkroom play a role in forming the image. Grouping his subjects,
which are drawn from films and photographs, into ‘Agents’ (perhaps actors,
initiators or critical observers) and ‘Crowds’, Saunders poses a similar balance
between individual portrait and historical scene. His installation for Sharjah is
conceived as 'the irradiated trace of a picture gallery, or else a photographic standin
for one that has gone missing.'

Courtesy of the artist and Harris Lieberman, New York. Commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation

April 2011