Matthew Mitchell is a fine artist painter based in Co Clare. In 2017 Mitchell completed his MFA at NCAD and was awarded a NCAD Studio Residency at NAStudios, Dublin. Since graduating from NCAD was awarded the emerging Irish Artist Residency Award at the Burren College of Art he has exhibited in Law Society of Ireland, VUE Art Fair Dublin, Mason Hayes and Curran, The Sailors Home in Limerick and the RHA annual exhibition, INTERPLAY – The Burren College of Art, Gallery 126 Galway. LEGACY – The Courthouse Gallery Ennistimon. His work has been purchased by the OPW, the Law Society of Ireland, and are in corporate and private collections.
Matthew Mitchell’s work strives to find a visual language for the duality between our necessarily abstracted experience of place and being in the new digital landscape, and our perception of place and being in relation to the more tangible primeval geological past.
This interplay of past and present place and time exists in the intermingling organic and inorganic forms on the canvas, in the physical act of making the work and in the perceived embodied experience of what is made. The processes used in the studio echo the naturally occurring processes of concealment and revelation in the physical act of erosion in the natural environment. Organic material such as fine river clay taken from the Caher river bed is applied in layers, and then weathered over time. The act of construction in the layering and the deconstruction of etching and sanding and dissolving, and the transformational potential of the material, enables the observed materiality of the landscape to be embodied in the tactile surface of the piece. At the same time, the use of the reflective qualities of enamel on textured coloured surfaces allows forms to appear and disappear, their visual reality in time shifting and impermanent. The inorganic materiality of the enamel and its translucence allows it to be part of the whole, but with a different separate narrative.

New Works
The work attempts to find a visual language for a duality between our necessarily abstracted experience of place and being in the new digital landscape, and our perception of place and being in relation to the more tangible primeval geological past. It is an attempt to use the visual lexicon of the past to articulate and chronicle our experience of the transient, often invisible now. This interplay of past and present place and time exists in the intermingling organic and inorganic forms on the canvas, in the physical act of making the work, and in the perceived embodied experience of what is made. Using limestone clays collected from a specific places within the Burren, the processes used in the studio echo the naturally occurring processes of concealment and revelation in the physical act of erosion in the natural environment. At the same time, the inorganic materiality of enamel and its translucence allows it to be part of the whole, but with a different separate narrative.

Selected Exhibitions
2022 Winter Exhibition, SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2022 Summer Exhibition, SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2021 Winter Exhibition, SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2021 Timeline – Amlíne, (Solo Show) SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2019 Legacy, (Solo Show) The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, Co Clare
2019 Interplay, Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughan, Co Clare
2019 Interplay, Gallery 126, Woodquay, Galway
2018 Winter Exhibition, SO Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2018 VUE Art Fair, RHA, Dublin, So Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2018 Lineage, Landscape and the Contemporary Imagination, The Sailor’s Home, Limerick
2018 Borders, Mountshannon Arts Festival, Co.Clare
2018 RHA 188th Annual Exhibition, Dublin
2018 Spring Show, Gallery Artists, So Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2018 Fit Out Expo RDS, So Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2017 Gallery Show, So Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2017 Group Show, Mason Hayes & Curran, Dublin
2017 VUE Art Fair, RHA, Dublin, So Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2017 Collisions, So Fine Art Editions, Dublin
2017 Bhoireann Am (Burren Time), MFA Graduate Exhibition, NCAD, Dublin
2016 Side to Side, MFA Group Exhibition, Annex Building, 101 – 103 James Street, Dublin
2016 Good Tidings We Bring, MFA Group Exhibition, Frawleys, Thomas Street, Dublin

Collections
OPW MFA Exhibition Bhoireann Am (Burren Time)
The Law Society of Ireland
Private and Corporate collections in Africa, Ireland and the UK

Reviews
2017 The Irish Times, ‘Fine art graduates fuse forces and flex their mussels’ by Aidan Dunne https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/visual-art/fine-art-graduates-fuse- forces-and-flex-their-mussels-1.3122322

Articles
Painttube Word Press. Matthew Mitchell

Matthew Mitchell – MFA Graduate,2017

Catalogues
RHA 188th Annual Exhibition catalogue, page 90. Namurian III. Burren limestone marl, enamel paint, 60cm x 50cm.

Awards
Printmaking Award University of the West of England 1986
NAStudio Graduate Award, Studio Residency, 2017

Education
2017 MFA Fine Art Painting, National College of Art & Design
1991 PGCE, Goldmiths’ College, University of London
1989 Fine Art Printmaking (BA Hons, University of the West of England
1986 Foundation Course,Cambridge College of Arts & Technology