Mat Collishaw Hon. FRPS | |
|---|---|
 Mat Collishaw in 2024 | |
| Born | 6 January 1966 Nottingham, England |
| Nationality | English |
| Known for | Installation, Sculpture, Photography |
| Movement | Contemporary Art, Young British Artists |
| Awards | Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society |
Matthew "Mat" Collishaw Hon. FRPS (born 6 January 1966 [1] ) is a contemporary British artist based in London.
Collishaw's work uses photography and video. With an early foundation at Goldsmiths College, Collishaw formed part of the legendary movement of Young British Artists (YBA's). He was one of 16 young artists who participated in the seminal Freeze exhibition organized by Damien Hirst in 1988, that launched the YBA, as well as the provocative Sensation show of 1997. His best known work is Bullet Hole (1988), which is a closeup photo of what appears to be a bullet hole wound in the scalp of a person's head, mounted on 15 light boxes. Collishaw took the original image from a pathology textbook that actually showed a wound caused by an ice pick. [2] Bullet Hole was first exhibited in Freeze and is now in the collection of the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Australia. [3]
Throughout his 30-year career, Collishaw has contemplated the nature of the human subconscious and explored ways to influence it through various media. Through optical illusions, paintings, projections and moving sculptures, the artist creates works and scenarios that directly and unconsciously engage their viewers. The works encourage us to think about fundamental questions of psychology, history, sociology and science. Behind the richness and visual appeal of each work there is a deep exploration of how we perceive and are influenced by the world today through images, and modern technology.
Artist often refers to the work of old masters. Most of his art pieces contain references to historical themes and classical techniques of portraying nature, characteristic of the culture of a given era. Borrowed images are digitally processed and appear in a new interpretation of the relationship between representation and reality.
"To find out what it is that we are creating when we're making this simulacrum of the world, and how much that is divorcing us from the world or how much it's making us understand the world. It's kind of what we are as human beings that interests me. And for that I can back on so many different fields of interest, from that kind of evolutionary biology which I'm very interested in, to the history of art, and also evolving technologies." – Mat Collishaw
In 2021 a zoetrope-inspired large-scale animated work ‘Equinox’ by Mat Collishaw, commissioned by Expo 2020 Dubai as a permanent piece, had been unveiled at the Sustainability Pavilion.
Jonathan Jones wrote in an interview with the artist in The Guardian of Collishaw's 2013 exhibition at Arter, Istanbul; ‘A show that foregrounds his political conscience in powerful works such as Last Meal On Death Row. For me, Collishaw is a good political artist for the same reason he is a good religious artist and a good artist-artist. It is because he believes in the efficacy of images. Not for him the abstract evasion, the minimalist half smile... he wants to punch your imagination in the stomach. He justifies the art of sensation by showing how it can have depth in its oomph.’ [4]
Collishaw's artwork, All Things Fall, received widespread acclaim, notably by The Sunday Times writer and art critic Waldemar Januszczak, who wrote; ‘You walk in, and before you is a model of a classical temple, circular, domed, becolumned, around which hundreds of nude figures have been arranged in cryptic poses. What they are doing is unclear. But it seems to be something nasty. Suddenly the lights dip and the temple begins to spin. Faster and faster it goes, until the figures crowded around it jump into action, like drawings in a flipbook, and you have before you a remarkable re-creation of the Massacre of the Innocents, the biblical murder of every newborn boy ordered, at Christmas, by Herod. The sudden burst of unexpected violence is brilliantly paced, brilliantly achieved, in an artwork that is nothing less than a contemporary masterpiece.’ [5]
The exhibition The Centrifugal Soul, at Blain|Southern Gallery, London in 2017 received notable praise, in particular critic Gaby Wood wrote of the work, Albion for The Telegraph; ‘...the fact that he can convert such abstract ideas into works that are elegant and entertaining makes him, uniquely among artists and thinkers so far this century, a cross between an aesthetic philosopher and a magician. [6] ’
Collishaw's first venture into VR, with his exhibition Thresholds in 2017, was reviewed by Laurie Taylor for frieze Magazine: "Collishaw has not recreated an historical experience, but has instead constructed an entirely new one. The end product is ultimately Collishaw’s vision and it teems with the reverence he has not only for the wonder of photography, but also for the power of its illusions." [7]
British pathologist, Austin Gresham, wrote a handbook, A Colour Atlas of Forensic Pathology, in 1975. Collishaw said it became "the Britart bible", as a source for explicit images of dead bodies for artwork. [8] [9]
Collishaw was born in Nottingham. He was raised in a Dawn Christadelphian family. [10] In 2015, he was named one of GQ's 50 best dressed British men. [11] Collishaw is married to Polly Morgan with whom he has two sons. [12]
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible. The prize is awarded at Tate Britain every other year, with various venues outside of London being used in alternate years. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the UK's most publicised art award. The award represents all media.
The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, in the late 1980s, whereas some from the group had trained at Royal College of Art.
Dame Tracey Karima Emin is an English artist known for autobiographical and confessional artwork. She produces work in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and sewn appliqué. Once the "enfant terrible" of the Young British Artists in the 1980s, Tracey Emin is now a Royal Academician.
The Saatchi Gallery is a London gallery for contemporary art and an independent charity opened by Charles Saatchi in 1985. Exhibitions which drew upon the collection of Charles Saatchi, starting with US artists and minimalism, moving to the Damien Hirst-led Young British Artists, followed by shows purely of painting, led to Saatchi Gallery becoming a recognised authority in contemporary art globally. It has occupied different premises, first in North London, then the South Bank by the River Thames, and finally in Chelsea, Duke of York's HQ, its current location. In 2019 Saatchi Gallery became a registered charity and began a new chapter in its history. Recent exhibitions include the major solo exhibition of the artist JR, JR: Chronicles, and London Grads Now in September 2019 lending the gallery spaces to graduates from leading fine art schools who experienced the cancellation of physical degree shows due to the pandemic.
Karsten Schubert was a German art dealer and publisher working in London.
Freeze is the title of an art exhibition that took place in July 1988 in an empty London Port Authority building at Surrey Docks in London Docklands. Its main organiser was Damien Hirst. It was significant in the subsequent development of the Young British Artists.
Angus Fairhurst was an English artist working in installation, photography and video. He was one of the Young British Artists (YBAs).
Carl Freedman is the founder of Carl Freedman Gallery. He previously worked as a writer and a curator.
Abigail Lane is an English artist who works in photography, wax casting, printing and sound. Lane was one of the exhibitors in the 1988 Damien Hirst-led Freeze exhibition—a mixed show of art which was significant in the development of the later-to-be YBA scene of art.
Matthew Slotover is an English publisher and entrepreneur. He co-founded Frieze, a media and events company that has a focus on the art scene and that also produces the annual Frieze Art Fair. in 2021 he co-founded Toklas restaurant, London, and in 2022 he opened Fort Road Hotel, Margate.
Waldemar Januszczak is a Polish-British art critic and television documentary producer and presenter. Formerly the art critic of The Guardian, he took the same role at The Sunday Times in 1992, and has twice won the Critic of the Year award.
Sarah Kent is a British art critic, formerly art editor of the weekly London "what's on" guide Time Out. She was an early supporter of the Young British Artists in general, and Tracey Emin in particular, helping Emin to get exposure. This has led to polarised reactions of praise and opposition for Kent. She adopts a feminist stance and has stated her position to be that of "a spokesperson, especially for women artists, in a country that is essentially hostile to contemporary art."
Matthew Higgs is an English artist, curator, writer and publisher. His contribution to UK contemporary art has included the creation of Imprint 93, a series of artists’ editions featuring the work of artists such as Martin Creed and Jeremy Deller. During the 1990s he promoted artists outside the Young British Artists mainstream of the period.
Adam Chodzko is a contemporary British artist, exhibiting internationally. His practice uses a wide range of media, including video, installation, photography, drawing, and performance.
Gregor Muir is Director of Collection, International Art, at Tate, having previously been the Executive Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London from 2011 to 2016. He was the director of Hauser & Wirth, London, at 196a Piccadilly, from 2004 to 2011. He is also the author of a 2009 memoir in which he recounts his direct experience of the YBA art scene in 1990s London.
Brilliant! was a group exhibition of contemporary art held at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA between 22 October 1995 and 7 January 1996. It traveled to the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas, where it was on view between 17 February and 14 April 1996.
Blain|Southern was a contemporary art gallery with branches in London, Berlin and New York. It was started in September 2010 by Harry Blain and Graham Southern, who had sold their previous gallery, Haunch of Venison, to Christie's. The gallery was originally at 21 Dering Street, but moved to 4 Hanover Square, London W1, in October 2012.
Bullet Hole is the title of a 1988 artwork by British artist Mat Collishaw. Despite the title, the work is a reproduction of an ice pick wound to the head, appropriated from a pathology manual and blown up over an interlocking grid of fifteen separate framed images that make up one single work. It first went on show in the exhibition Freeze, organized by Damien Hirst.
Corvi-Mora is a contemporary art gallery based in Kennington, South London. The gallery represents emerging and established international artists including Turner Prize nominees Roger Hiorns and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
Nick Fudge is a British painter, sculptor, and digital artist.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
