About The Dashwood Collection
Matthew Dashwood was born in 1970, the son of renowned UK artist John Dashwood, who’s work now adorns many public places, cathedrals, living rooms and building sides around the country.
Matthew, by his own admition, came late to static visual arts in the mid 2000s, having concentrated on theatre performance, film and video. He uses subtle techniques borrowed from those areas in all his images and it's this which packs so much unque style into his art.
The still image tells a different story to the moving image, but it's still a story. Any work in this collection might be a curtain-up on an opening scene of a play, or the end of act 2. It might be constructed from dozens of separate photographic components, or based upon a single location and constructed from scratch. A work might start life on a scrap of paper, or in the computer.
“I love creating confusion, the subtler the better. It looks obvious at first glance, then you look closer and it's not what you thought.”
“One of my goals is to make you ask: is it a painting? Is it a watercolour? Is it oil? How has he done this? Then once you’ve accepted that it’s all and none of these, the story emerges."
"Above all else, I want to imply a story, lurking quietly in the background. It's not blatant, it doesn't hit you in the face. It's subtle and requires engagement. What’s in the clown’s mind? Who’s hiding around the corner, who built this, that and the other. That's a bit dangerous and a bit beautiful."
"I know my style is not to everybody’s taste – and that’s fine. The pictures are distinctly me. Nothing else on the planet looks like one of my pictures.”
