Artist's statement

I paint tools that are familiar to me. In painting I play with an idea of gesture, whether this mark of the hand should be seen or unseen. I pay attention to the shadow, a remembrance that is played between the tool that is observed and the background it rests upon. This space is shallow and interior that is in keeping within a genre of still life that elicits complete attention on the objects without distraction.
I consider their placement as though they are about to be picked up from a rest between jobs. I think of these tasks undertaken in repetition that became automatic and unconscious allowing daydreams to take hold. As these tools have grown and evolved together with the body to enable certain tasks to be achieved, familiarities and similarities have occurred that enable the tools to take on the characteristics of its user. In this way they could be considered representational of their user, becoming less still life and more self-portrait by proxy and substitution.

web: www.mattmorrisartist.com