Studio visit - Matt Arbuckle October 2021

DS: Hi Matt, we last caught up here in Melbourne a couple of months back when there was a little opening in the NZ / Australia travel bubble. I think you were on the last quarantine-free flight back to Auckland? What is it like to be in New Zealand right now, and how has the pandemic affected you and your art practice?

MA: Yes that was a stressful time. The bubble isn’t much of a bubble is it! My partner and I were stuck in Melbourne for three extra weeks due to flights to NZ being cancelled in the context of the outbreak in Melbourne at the time. After that three-week period, we then had an opening of three days to get back to NZ before the border completely shut. As our current life is set up in New Zealand (also not planned but due to COVID!) the thought of being stuck in Melbourne posed a few logistical problems and stress!

Much like Melbourne, Auckland is currently in a lockdown – it’s what’s referred to as “Level 4” at the moment. While we have been lucky here to not have lengthy lockdowns, they are by comparison to Australia, very strict. For example, in Level 4, the only shops that are open are supermarkets and chemists. Click and collect isn’t a thing at this level – cafes and restaurants can’t operate at all – not even for take-away. And you are encouraged not to leave your suburb.

Regarding my practice, one of the most frustrating challenges the pandemic has created has been not being able to see art or exhibitions in the flesh. I’ve come to recognise just how important it is for me to see the surface of a painting in the flesh - or to experience how a work interacts or sits within its physical space. For me, this is such an important part of experiencing what the artist is communicating to us. I was looking forward to seeing Brett Graham’s show at Wellington City Gallery; that’s a show that is difficult to grasp and digest through an online platform. There have been a few practical challenges too: access to material suppliers has involved long wait times for freight; it’s currently faster to buy materials and access a fuller range of supplies from St Luke’s in Fitzroy, compared to any suppliers local in Auckland – so this is what I’ve had to do. 

I’ve also had numerous shows cancelled and postponed multiple times. This has meant shows have often ended up overlapping, when really they had been planned years apart, which has created some odd timelines. I have had exhibitions hung in galleries and then not be seen by anyone. In some cases, exhibitions and projects that have taken years to develop have been curbed. It has certainly highlighted how special it is to exhibit – something I had taken for granted prior to the pandemic. I really miss seeing the work in a context outside the studio, where it can become part of a narrative, especially in a group setting. This is where the dialogue between artists comes alive – for me it’s what’s most exciting about showing work. Maybe my next show will have to be in the supermarket.

DS: Could you tell me about your studios in Melbourne and Auckland, and your current work from home environment? In what ways does the work you make differ when creating in these different locations?

MA: Up until recently, I had a studio in East Brunswick, Melbourne at ‘Hayden’s’, which is a large sawtooth industrial building that houses 30 or so artists. I’ve had a studio there since 2018, and also a studio on Cross Street in Auckland, which is out the back of Sunset Tattoo Parlour. Given that both are hardly accessible in this Covid period, it just didn’t make sense to be paying for them and not having access. Both studios were shared with other artists and losing this community has been disappointing. I have recently moved out of both studios after coming to terms that the pandemic and lockdowns are going to be here for a while. We have moved to a new house that has a brick garage in Morningside, which I have set up as a studio.

Working between two locations has had its logistical challenges, however, for the most part it has been very doable, and allowed me to stay connected with communities in both cities. My work is often influenced by my immediate surroundings and locations. As the majority of my paintings are produced on the ground, the actual studio floor or ground outside influences the outcome of the work, leaving its impressions on the work. The work also then leaves a mark on the ground where it was made – a diary recording of sorts. I paint outside a lot, which presents some interesting variables to navigate – the weather being one. The differing climates between Auckland and Melbourne have played an interesting role in how the paintings are realised. For example, in Melbourne over the summer, the drying time for paintings is quite rapid compared to in a humid Auckland summer. If a painting is made in Melbourne, therefore, the various bands of colour tend not to run as much compared to a work made in Auckland. Also, different pigments have different weights, so if the pigment solution hasn’t dried, or is taking a few days to dry, the pigment tends to fall out of the weave before binding. This results in more translucency and wash of colour in the work. As such, the final outcomes of a painting will certainly be influenced by what city/climate it was made in, purely from a process perspective. My visual surroundings, and therefore location, also play an important part in how I conceptualise the work.

DS: We have a solo exhibition of your work coming up soon, can you tell us about the exhibition?

MA: Reflection is Reflection is an exhibition made of two parts and is made between two locations, and two homes: Melbourne and Auckland. The title is a nod to a friend and a favourite exhibition that I saw in Sydney in 2019: Radio Radio by Diena Georgetti.

Vice Versa (Part 1) is a large work that was made earlier this year, on a section of driveway in Glenlyon, country Victoria. It is a follow-up work to Recto-Verso, which was made in Auckland, and exhibited at Hasting City Art Gallery. Recto-Verso was a large draping work that consisted of the three primary colours and was painted over the cracked concrete driveway of my home in Auckland. As a response to this, for this current show, Vice Versa (Part 1) started off being soaked in the secondary colours orange, purple, and green. The relationship of primary to secondary colours between Recto-Verso and Vice Versa (Part 1), is a reference to having a second home and being made in a second location. Like Recto-Verso, Vice Versa (Part 1) charts both the physical and imagined landscape, and was also made stretched over a driveway – this time at my current home-base in Glenlyon, Victoria. As the work dried, its colours bled and ran in and around the driveway, imprinting a copy of where it lay over surfaces and the gravel it dried against. The work is 2 x 16 metres in size and is to be unravelled in the gallery along the back wall, held up by wooden fragments. These fragments were used to hold the work down over a windy few days of making on the driveway. The work can be shown in different configurations depending on the space it inhabits, through draping and bunching.

Accompanying Vice Versa (Part 1), Vice Versa (Part 2) consists of five smaller paintings that have been pulled taut on stretcher bars. These works are made on knitted polyester, and to pick up the slight metallic surface the works exude, they are framed in aluminium. Each work has begun as a loose piece of fabric pre-cut to size. The work is then folded vertically, soaked in foundation colours, then folded again horizontally. Further rounds of soaking in colour and folding continue, and so the process goes. I often begin making works in a bundle together, with fabrics stacked upon each other, overlapping and folded together. Over the course of 5-12 soakings, I will pull certain pieces of fabric out from the folded piles at different stages and re-soak them on their own. In this process, while starting as part of a greater whole, a work then evolves into a unique piece, while sharing similar structures and fold lines as the group.

DS: The landscape has previously been referenced in your work, though you aren’t a traditional landscape painter, and in your recent voile works there has been a particularly interesting shift in how landscape exists as a trace or memory in the work. To what extent do you see your work as abstraction versus landscape? And what are the landscapes that are significant to you?

MA: I see the works as embodying both abstraction and landscape – neither the more dominant. I also see the works as straddling a line between deliberate gesture versus allowing the material to respond to the space, climate, and surface it is made within. To a degree, I direct the general structure and colour sequence by choosing how I fold and lay fabric for soaking: sometimes I will choose to place a fold on a crack or join in the floor, which through the soaking process, allows it to be exaggerated as the colour pools and then dries in response. The result is the fabric making a rubbing, or impression from that particular location.

Landscape is an interesting word – one with multiple meanings. Landscape devices or structures are present in the form of my paintings. I see the concept of landscapes, however, existing in my work as more reference to the environments and places where the works are made; the land has influenced the outcome of the work as such. Rather than mirroring a landscape, the works tend to look inwards, in that they document, retain, or echo the places and times in which they were made.

DS: For the last few years you have moved from painting with oil on board and canvas supports to using more delicate, absorptive supports of silk and then voile. How did this transition come about? Could you explain the painting process for the voile works, and the relative properties of these different materials?

MA: I made a shift from board-to-canvas-to-silk/polyester through a frustration and then desire to play with a sense of space on a flat surface. I found my process using canvas was limiting; the paint sat on top of the weave where depth could only be found from textured layering coming outwards. This is compared with the silk and/or knitted polyester works, where I have been able to penetrate the weave. Creating these works I’ve used elements of traditional Japanese shibori dyeing techniques to make abstract compositions by wrapping, twisting, folding, and draping the fabric over found surfaces and structures. The fabric is made three-dimensional before being returned to a two-dimensional plane. In the completed work the illusion of depth is deeper and yet the surface remains flat. The resulting paintings use depth and movement to trace and reveal abstract memories, imprinting the experience of place into the artwork.

I have continued to paint on linen or canvas as part of my practice. I am more excited about how far I can push the processes of lighter materials, however, due to the scope that comes with their transparency, weave, weight, and robustness.

DS: There are some lesser-known tangents to your practice. I’m thinking of the book paintings we exhibited in 2017, your use of found materials and papers and also of your photography. Could you tell us about these other streams of your work?

MA: These streams of my work are something I continue alongside my paintings. I see all of them as essentially interlinking – mainly through the process of working with material and process, in dialogue with form, colour and shape. 

I’ve always hunted around junk stores for old, discarded books that have been partially destroyed – be that pages torn out, or the ink from the words running. I find these books interesting, in that they have become superfluous as texts, however, remaining incredibly interesting as objects. Books that date back to the 1900s often had fabric wrapping their covers, which over time often fade, and create interesting effects. These get me thinking about how to move paint and dye around on my painting works.

Photography – well that has always been an essential part of my ‘drawing’ practice.  Sometimes a vista we may walk by every day will become absurd, amusing, or beautiful if looked at in a certain way. I keep on the lookout for these things to shoot photos of. Sometimes these photos become a work in themselves. At other times they just serve the purpose of keeping me looking – because looking is an important part of painting.

Found paper is something that has long fascinated me, and in particular blueprints and folding maps. Old paper has a memory – have you ever folded a map back down and the paper takes the lead? You can guide it, but it always falls its own way. The pieces I find already have had a history, such as faded colour or crinkles, so I like responding to their imperfections. Sometimes the paper and aging of the paper is so beautiful and interesting it’s best they are left. I won’t paint or draw into these ones, they are kept archived in the studio.

DS: What role does photography have in your practice?

MA: As I mentioned earlier, taking photos is a process I liken to drawing. I find the process of shooting photos particularly helpful when I can’t get into the studio or when I feel stuck. Taking photos on film allows me to keep looking and acknowledging light shadows, and forms around me. I find film holds light in a far more atmospheric way compared with digital. Photography has played an important role in helping me discover a visual language between my paintings and what’s around me. Looking through the viewfinder to form a composition and then deciding whether it’s worth the shot is an important part of taking photos. This process helps with my thinking and planning of painting compositions. I am currently shooting on a Nikon FM2, which was bought from the Adelaide police forensic department. Apparently, it may have been used to shoot the Snowtown murders in the early 90s.

DS: You recently had a very ambitious and interesting solo exhibition at Hastings City Art Gallery (NZ). Can you describe the work you created?

MA: Hastings City Art Gallery has a unique architecture, designed by Natusch, Wilcox & Co in 1970. The gallery is laid out like a honeycomb of octagonal units and The Holt Gallery is made up of 15 walls to form one room. It was important to me that Recto-Verso responded to this unique space, and I made it specifically for the gallery it was shown in. Recto-Verso’s 50-metre length matched the 50-metre diameter of the gallery's internal walls.

It was quite a project to take on – painting a 50-metre work in a small studio space that was shared with other artists presented some logistical challenges. While I carefully planned the work, the actual process of making was very experimental. To begin with, I designed a custom ‘roll-to-roll’ machine, which got the fabric to roll from one part of the machine to the other. This meant at one time, there was only ever 1-2 metres of fabric available for me to paint on. The whole painting was therefore only revealed once unrolled – and this occurred once it was in the gallery space. That was a fun, but nerve-wracking experience. I had an idea how it would look and feel in the space, but there was an element left to chance, just by the very nature of how it was made. We unrolled the entire work, and then draped and upstretched the fabric throughout the gallery. It reached up to the vaulted ceiling in some parts and was tethered there, while also stretching to, and wrapping the walls. At some points, it interrupted a section of gallery space, by spilling from the ceiling, or off a wall to the floor.

DS: Could you tell us about your use of colour, and the colours you are most drawn to?

MA: I resonate with Stanley Whitney thoughts on colour: “Creating space within color involves experiments with density, vibrancy, saturation, and even with matteness. It is not just formal for me—color has great depth; it can bring up great emotion and immense feeling." (Stanley Whitney, Artforum, 2015)

I tend to begin a painting using one of the primary colours and then mixing and building up colour from that. Each work goes through 5-12 soakings – sometimes of just one colour and other times a combination of colours to encourage bleeding. Different recipes hold various ratios of pigment binder and water to shift the flow and control of each soaking. I think emotion often drives what colours I am drawn to use. Analysing a work I have made post-hoc, I can recognise why I chose certain colour combinations based on what was going on for me at the time. Using colour is a cathartic process then, if you like.

DS: Who are the artists that have influenced you, or that you admire?

MA: Sam Gilliam - king of drapery works, Robert Rauschenberg - ¼ mile painting. Surfaces of Agnes Martins paintings, Robert Duran watercolours from the late 1960s. My favourite New Zealand painter is Jake Walker. Richard Frater’s recent works of bird window collisions in the exhibition Bluets. Heidi Brickell’s thread and woven canvas paintings, Claude Viallat - Wide Walls, Janet Burchill and Jennifer McCamley - their Freiland Series from 1992 I often think about.

A brief list, what are you currently:

Reading
Ralph Hotere The Dark is Light Enough

Watching
Killing Eve

Listening
95bfm

Missing
Marios on Brunswick Street

Enjoying
The weather