Matt Pearce

Matt Pearce graduated in 2013 with First Class Honours from the University for the Creative Arts.

Matt’s work is inspired by an interest in the human figure and how it can be textualised in order to express identity – or to transform it. Specifically he is drawn to the art of tattooing of the human form and exploring the power it has to assign social status as well as to turn the body into a living work of art.

Matt’s subjects include tattooed ladies from the late 19th and early 20th century circus and contemporary Russian prisoners, looking at how their tattooing has both defined their identities and rewritten their histories.

About his practice Matt writes: “I’ll often begin with a textured or toothed surface: sometimes it will literally be texture (handwriting or the pages of a book) or it may be a layer of tissue paper or a sand mixture. Then I’ll build up the image in layers. I work in acrylic but also enjoy mixing my media, so I’ll often add pen, pencil, gel mediums and collage materials. I’ll always have my oil pastels close to hand and a palette knife to scratch back the surface.

“I like to create a palimpsest: a surface that is not a unified whole but is instead a series of revealed and obscured layers. With a background in literature and publishing, I’m also interested in exploring the interaction between the visual and the verbal: how a painting can project a narrative and how visual elements can work as a language.”