The Architect: "Along with ‘Ascension’ is the most recent painting. Although all of my work is about moments of transformation, these are the most metaphysical in content. The Architect is analogous with the one who controls, ordering our material experience of space and so our understanding of our bodies and their physical context. My paintings attempt to create a dialogue between structure and experience, between shape and object, one that has mass and transcends its corporal identity. We see the head of a character (perhaps the Architect), hiding or seeking shelter beneath the large slab of yellow which folds its way back into the painting, then climbs up to and out of the top right. This prominent shape is the brightest and lightest part in both colour and density, offering a sense of hope or a looming weight ready to crush its human captive. The pattern embedded in its surface is portent with symbolic meaning, perhaps a blessing or a code to decipher. It is here we find the paintings provenance. The pattern, taken from a London Tube seat fabric might seem merely decorative. But why do we insist on these decorative codes, this ordering of our visual experience, does it indeed contain a desire beyond utility? Or is it a transcendent catalyst embedded in our psychological DNA?"
Matthew Burrows