This series examines the transitory, impermanent and ephemeral qualities of memory and material through a continually evolving series of internal landscape collages. Constructed with layers of cut white paper, these relief collages are made visible when light casts shadows across the surface. Light defines and demarcates space and ultimately completes the work.
The series is inspired, in part, by my memories of Bangalore city and the inherent sculptural qualities of the buildings and landscapes that I saw while living there – old houses, new towering apartment complexes, Hindu temples and crematoriums, industrial factories, large advertising billboards, monolithic rocks and boulder formations that dominate the skyline on the edge of the city. These tactile paper constructions bring together these sculptural and architectural forms that are reimagined by a fading memory of a city that is in constant flux and development.
Many of my projects explore themes of presence, absence and the liminal space between. Here the expression of absence is most tangibly felt and the void is seen as an extension of material form rather than a contradiction of it. These collages invite the viewer to contemplate form, structure, line and space, while also allowing for individual projections and inscriptions onto the visual plane, which both welcomes and resists embodiment.
Bespoke Death Landscape collages are available from the store.
© 2018 Matt Lee. All Rights Reserved.
