MATHEW WEIR

In his minutely observed paintings Mathew Weir sources images of 19th and 20th Century ceramic figurines and dioramas and relocates them in landscape settings, collaged together using an archive of sourced imagery. Weir's Earlier paintings featured a range of Georgian and Victorian ceramics, some depicting black males, through which Weir explored notions of difference, fear and voyeurism. By removing visual elements from their historical context Weir urges the viewer to reconsider the meanings we instinctively attach to them and creates an ambiguity between subject and intention. Each painting deals in a violence that is concealed or diverted through painterly beauty. The floral clusters and decorative elements from Flemish still-life painting that frame these shiny and naive objects point to further layers of coding.