Mat Collishaw. The Machine Zone

About

“The dark side of my work primarily concerns the internal mechanisms of visual imagery and how these mechanisms address the mind.”
– Mat Collishaw

Mat Collishaw is one of the most significant and compelling artists in contemporary British art. 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 as well as the provocative Sensation show of 1997.

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. Questions regarding behavioral manipulation, programming, temporal reality all linger in the viewing experience.

Having presented Collishaw’s project Albion in Moscow in 2018, Gary Tatintsian Gallery is again hosting the artist in 2022 with the exhibition The Machine Zone.

“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 fall 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