Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Shown here are the latest photographic works from British artist Mat Collishaw, new additions to his Insecticide series, originally started in 2006. Many photographers have documented natural specimens over the years in many different ways, but they are invariably of complete, near-perfect ‘record’ specimens. Collishaw’s work is something very different and dark indeed; the insects looks like they met their deaths moments before the shutter was pressed, with their guts spilled out across the image. The beautiful, lush colours and velvet-like textures of their wings and bodies are in stark contrast to their mangled, torn forms. The actual prints become almost abstract when seen in person (each print measures nearly 2metres x 2metres, and again the limitations of the computer screen really don’t convey this experience) and you get lost in the rich colours and textures, almost forgetting the tragedy of the subject matter. Collishaw is fascinated by imagery which is at once alluring and disturbing, and he describes this series as "degraded and violent memorials to a once living form". He goes on: "I'm interested in the way imagery affects me subliminally. Whether I like it or not, there are mechanisms within us that are primed to respond to all kinds of visual material, leaving us with no real say over what we happen to find stimulating. The dark side of my work primarily concerns the internal mechanisms of visual imagery and how these mechanisms address the mind.” This series is on show at The Haunch of Venison in Berlin from Sept 12th – December 19th. Insecticide 13, 2009 Insecticide 16, 2009 Insecticide 14, 2009 Insecticide 17, 2009 Insecticide 15, 2009 All images © Mat Collishaw
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
When his newborn son arrived home, Collishaw became preoccupied with disinfecting the flat, involving killing bugs and insects that had made their way inside. He began printing laser images of these flattened creatures by placing them into 35mm glass slide carriers. This process graduated to desktop scanners where he could directly scan the crushed insect. […]
These sculptures pay tribute to Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, a book of poetry exploring themes of decadence and eroticism. On close inspection their fine petals have a flesh-like appearance, with anthropomorphic scars and sores pitting the skin. They are reflections on the depraved state of modern, media-saturated culture and the spectre of genetic manipulation.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Many single mothers lived in the area around his studio in Bethnal green. Collishaw photographed some of them with their babies in the style of Georges de la Tour; intimate, romantic, and impoverished.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
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2008 Installation
Collishaw finds it curious that people so often record and document things going on around them, and can’t quite appreciate the existence of something unless they capture and preserve it. Catching fairies was meant as an allegorical expression of this thought. In the images, Collishaw stands to his thighs in muddy water vainly attempting to […]
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmith’s College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally.
