Matthew Emery | Shattered, 2023

Etching

24 x 35 cm

Unique Work

Matthew's work highlights and reacts to the exploitation of workers under capitalism, particularly with reference to labour and often in reaction to current political events. His past experience as a fabricator means that he enjoys working with steel and sees the etching process as a way of manipulating plates to appear fatigued and exhausted as representation of working conditions which he has experienced. Emery recently completed a series of prints influenced by Antonio Gramsci's theory regarding 'common sense', which states that those who succeed have done so by "pulling one's self up by the bootstraps" and in turn suggests that those who fail, have done so because they did not work hard enough. This representation of exploiting workers for their labour power is shown through printing over-worked and exhausted steel plates which have been eroded to their limits in nitric acid and feature text, imagery and painterly mark-making. Emery is a student at Camberwell College of Arts (UAL) and is studying MA Fine Art: Printmaking, after graduating from his BA in Fine Art at Teesside University in 2022. He has recently appeared in exhibitions at Filet Gallery and Bargehouse and has worked on large-scale paintings which were installed at events in Middlesbrough.