Review - Mark Van Proyen on Matthew Picton's "A Seeker's Paradise" Exhibition at Nancy Toomey Fine Art

Read Mark Van Proyen’s expert review, in art journal SquareCylinder, of Matthew Picton’s A Seeker’s Paradise exhibition here.

“Traditionally, art has commemorated people, places and events, lest they be lost to the sands of time. But what happens when those shifting sands are the things being commemorated? Matthew Picton’s exhibition of ten recent works provides fascinating answers. The dates of these works range from 2016 to 2023, pointing to the labor-intensive nature of the artist’s process. Using archival pigment, he prints digital photo collages onto archival paper of varying thicknesses. He then undertakes the painstaking process of cutting elaborate perforations into the printed material before reassembling the pieces in two or three layers suspended atop one another with about an inch between them. When you walk past these works, the perspective shifts subtly, creating an enlivening animated effect.

The net results of this process are very similar to those seen in diachronic maps, used by archeologists to display layers of an excavated site to show how it evolved from one phase to the next over time. In Picton’s work, this representation of time is signaled by layering and his presentation of cities (or city maps) from high altitudes…” More »

Read review