Matt Arbuckle
TRIASSIC-JURASSIC
4 February - 11 March 2023

Matt Arbuckle’s practice is a process-driven exploration of place, bridging the notions of landscape with the languages of abstraction. He manipulates the fundamentals of scale, format, composition, material, colour and mark making to produce sculptural paintings that are large, vigorous and bold. Challenging the concept of space both metaphorically and physically, he imbues his paintings with complex and emotional narratives, evocative of a sense of the concrete and of the conceptual. Recently, Arbuckle has used elements of traditional Japanese shibori dyeing techniques to create compositions by wrapping, twisting, folding and draping fabric over found surfaces and structures. The resulting paintings use depth and movement to trace and reveal abstract memories, imprinting the experience of place into the artwork.

“In Arbuckle’s work the map is upended, folded open, the surface grazed, the content ghostly and stained. The map is laid on the ground where it abrades with the earth it describes. It collects debris - grit and dust and the accretions of time, layers of paint and the pressings of each moment folded in on itself. In doing so, the map begins to hold its own terrain, the tracings of negative space begin to form their own whole.”

— Emily Cormack

Read the catalogue essay by Emily Cormack

Matt Arbuckle (b. Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand) lives and works between Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and Naarm Melbourne. Arbuckle has a BFA from Unitec Institute of Technology, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (2009), and has held solo exhibitions at Daine Singer (Melbourne), Two Rooms (Auckland), Bus Projects (Melbourne), Parlour Projects (Hawks Bay, New Zealand), Paulnache Gallery (Gisborne, New Zealand), and Baustelle Gallery (Berlin). He was included in the group exhibition Repurpose, curated by Tony Oates, at Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, Canberra. Arbuckle was the recipient of the 2017 James Wallace Art Fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, followed by a solo exhibition there in 2018. In 2020–21 he was invited to present a solo exhibition at Hastings City Art Gallery, Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2021 he undertook a residency at Driving Creek, Coromandel, Aotearoa New Zealand. Arbuckle’s work is held in the Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki; the Wallace Arts Trust Collection; and the Arthur and Suzie Roe Collection, Melbourne. In 2022 Arbuckle was a recipient of the Melbourne Art Fair’s large-scale installation commission Beyond, supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants and the Melbourne Art Foundation.