Mat Collishaw graduated in 1989 at Goldsmiths’ College in London, and is considered for its provocations one of the Young British Artists.
The media he favors are sculpture, installation and photography. He also often draws on the great masterpieces’ images of art history.
Fascinated from taboo topics, like the repressed sexual desire, the power of the media on the imaginative capacity, and the concept of deity, the artist gives shape to a twilight world. Its task is to sublimate revolting elements through elaborate ornamentation, getting ambiguity between form and content. His decorations refer to the Victorian age taste, behind whose scientific progress, they hide still actual problems such as prostitution or poverty: the artist wants to indirectly criticize the England of our years. His work is the belief that the only hope of humanity to free itself from its animal nature may be in the aesthetic and scientific progress.
Recent solo exhibitions include: The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, St Nicholas’ Church Korenmarkt, Ghent (2020); The End of Innocence, Fundacio Sorigue, Lleida, Spain (2019); The Mask of Youth, Queen’s House, Royal Museums Greenwich, London, UK (2018); Thresholds, Somerset House, London; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham; Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, UK (2017); Fountains Relief, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden, North Yorkshire, UK (2016); Mat Collishaw, The New Art Gallery Walsall, West Midlands, UK, (2015 -16); In Camera, Birmingham Library, Birmingham, UK (2015-16); Black Mirror, Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy (2014); Mat Collishaw, 1/9unosunove, Rome (2014).
Recent group shows include: #15, 1/9unosunove, Rome; Daydreaming with Stanley Kubrick, Somerset House, London, UK (2016); A weed is a plant out of place, Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore, Ireland (2016); L’inconscient Pictòric (the pictural unconscious), Museo National D’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain (2015); Now you see me, TJ Boulting, London, UK (2016); Glasstress, Gotika, Palazzo Franchetti / Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere e Arti, Venice (2015); Since 1843: In the Making, Notthingham Trent University, Notthingham, UK (2014); Leiblichkeit Und Sexualitat / Corporeality and Sexuality, Votive Church, Vienna, Austria (2014).
Several Collishaw’s works are represented in several public collections including Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania and Tate, London.
