Harry Pye on …
 … videos:

I have been collaborating for the last couple of months with a film marker called Gordon Beswick. We are trying to learn animation and make pop videos. Our first attempt at making a pop video is for a song called Crushed by Roland Gift. The video is being screened upstairs but I thought it would be nice to bring a few paintings from the show so you could see what they look like in the flesh. Gordon Beswick has also filmed Mat perform a piece of music (that Mat composed himself) called, „Holy Island“ These two works have not been screened anywhere so it’s good they’ll  be making their debut at ArtDepoo.

… on the show in general:
Mat will be exhibiting at least 10 brand new works - oil paintings on board. They  are inspired by his adventures under the sea. Swimming underwater is a good way of feeling free and forgetting about your troubles.
I am bringing drawings, photos, collages and small paintings. And there will also be text based work.
Most of Mat's work has been inspired by his love of deep sea diving. My work is about my family and friends.
Mat and I have both been living in London for the last 9 years. We've collaborated on many different projects and had lots of adventures. This show is about our lives in London and the connections we have made.





Please drop by to check out the show with a special "Personal Guided Tour of the Exhibition" written by Harry Pye!

Mat Huphrey's statement:

Mat Humphrey uses an unplanned and instinctive approach to creating his paintings, and the results often resemble underwater landscapes, electron microscope photography and even ultrasound scans.  Biological looking forms appear that seem somewhat bacterial or cell-like, and there is the suggestion of plants, worms, intestines, and other organic matter. The artist is influenced by the films of Jean Painlevé, a pioneer of nature cinematography. Pre-dating Cousteau, his black and white short films are poetic visions of a microscopic underwater world. Painlevé was a great source of inspiration for many surrealist artists such as Buñuel and Breton.  Mat refers to the production of his works as being ‘automatic painting’, whereby images are entirely ‘made up’ and not influenced by any photographic references. The images are appropriations of memories and the subconscious impressions that are left behind from his studies of natural forms.  As a scuba diver himself, his first hand experience of this submerged reality is the source of this body of work.  He explains:
“Over the last two years I have spent a lot of time scuba diving around the coast of the UK. The water is invariably cold, especially at depth, and the visibility can be very poor. Due to the low visibility, I often find myself moving over the seabed using just my fingertips to pull me along. If I am slow and careful I can observe tiny life forms up close. To conserve air I change my breathing pattern and slow my heart rate down to a minimum, and in this state, the experience of the dive becomes very dream-like. It can feel strangely intimate and enclosed at the bottom of the sea, and within the containment of breathing apparatus, a diving suit and a mask, it can feel as if you are exploring the inside of your own mind. It is a mysterious place, alien and darkly atmospheric”.
From the beginning of last year Mat set himself the task of producing one painting every day.