Matthew Monahan

Monahan utilises a wide range of materials in his sculptures and drawings, including aluminium, paper, bronze, plaster, steel, sheet metal and plastic. He manipulates these materials in such a way as to obscure their identities: what seems hard is actually soft and vulnerable, while what seems fragile is in fact rigid and industrial. Signs of an almost alchemical approach to materials go hand in hand with a strong sense of fragmentation.

The human figure is a central theme, yet it tends to appear in pieces, as isolated limbs, heads and parts that have been broken off, rearranged and put back together again. The sculptures elicit a feeling of decay, collapse and disintegration, while at the same time allowing space to emerge for a new hybrid kind of beauty. Steel constructions function both as support structures and cages through which the images flit and dance.

In Monahan’s work, fragmentation is an intentional strategy rather than a product of chance. His methods conjure associations with an unfinished and dreamlike state of being in which forms bend and wrinkle, shatter and fall apart. Bending or folding plays a central role here. By turns elegant and violent, the act of folding exerts itself until the material quite literally gives way. This tension between control and loss gives rise to a rich field of meanings and associations.