Maggie Matthews

As can be said of many painters who live and work in Cornwall, Maggie Matthews is an artist fundamentally concerned with landscape. However, rather than interpret the cliffs, beaches and coves that surround her into straightforward representational views, Maggie looks closer and delves deeper.

Fascinated with the natural world, she focuses on pebbles, top shells, sea pinks and campion. Details of form, shape, pattern and colour intrigue her and inspire her to paint the minutiae which are contrasted against vivid planes of colour.

A starting point to every canvas is the division and proportioning of areas, a direct reflection of the dividing line in nature - the horizon of land, sea and sky. These proportions are represented by blocks of strong flat colour which soften at the edge as it submerges under sea.

Balancing the composition takes time, the drawing is carefully reworked and explored repeatedly, developing a painted surface of layered forms and fields of colour that create space and depth. Accident and chance play their part, but the final paintings are highly planned and complex.

It is Maggie Matthew’s honest and inherent love for colour and vibrancy combined with her attention to the lost details of our everyday topography that have propelled her into being one of Cornwall’s foremost contemporary abstract painters.

“The colours reflect the ambience of a day, whether it was hot and sunny, cold and windy or foggy and damp. I distil the essence of all I see, be it a pool of light, the motion of a wave or a wafting clump of seaweed. The beach never fails to inspire me, its beauty draws me closer. Collections of small jewel like shells and soft grey pebbles are, perhaps, nostalgic mementos of fine sunny days. Shaped by time, they fascinate me in their endless variety. It is this relationship between man and nature that is at the heart of my work.”