Bury Bustling
HD Video/2018 Bury Bustling is a special collaboration between illustrator Lee Crocker and Fine artist Matt Wilkinson; commissioned especially for the 2018 Past Project - Technology: Past and Future at MediaCityUK, Salford. Crocker draws inspiration from passersby in Bury. His quick sketchbook drawings use traditional dip pen and ink, combined with modern digital techniques in collaboration with Wilkinson. The text he uses are overheard conversations at the time of drawing. Using work from sketchbooks, his paintings and drawings tell honest stories about everyday life inspired by the surrounding urban landscape. Native Urban Clearways - Dialogue I
HD Video x 2/2015 Native Urban Clearways – Dialogue I is a twin video installation depicting two isolated mouths engrossed in fragmented dialogue. Extracting imagery and text from daily walks through his urban surroundings, Wilkinson creates bizarre sequences of scrabbled literature sourced from collected advertising, overheard conversation and his own poetry. Employing the cut up technique to compose the text, he tactfully employs speakers of contrasting accents to create a peculiar juxtaposition of dialect and accent. An interest lies in the contrasting and combining of literature, language and dialect which is playfully explored in the performances of the speakers. Native Urban Clearways - Dialogue II
HD Video x 3/2015 Native Urban Clearways - Dialogue II is a video and audio installation depicting three disembodied mouths individually filmed, from front and side on angles. The conversing mouths partake in a panoramic, flash and synchronised audio visual sequence that relentlessly bombards the viewer. Once again, employing the cut up technique derived from William. S. Burroughs, each mouth performs delegated lines selected by Wilkinson. The tactful selection of male and female speakers with broad regional accents, spanning from North West England, South East England and North Scotland, highlight Wilkinson’s interest in abstracting the text’s strong Lancastrian jargon with conflicting accents. A bizarre juxtaposition is emphasised when the fragmented text is performed due to the combining of these accents. The inspiration for the work’s content comes from Wilkinson’s own remembering’s and experiences of his upbringing in Lancashire, as well as the jargon and dialect synonymous with the region. |
Composition i
HD Video/2014 Composition i is a formation of beguiling aesthetics which stem from the core elements of Wilkinson's practice: fragmentation, composition and surrealism. The sequence of footage portrays six awakening eyes, tactfully composed to interact with the idiosyncrasies of one another. Each eye systematically hatches, gaining gradual consciousness of its surroundings, helping form a narrative. Paranoia, melancholy and hysteria are subtly present in a bizarre reciprocal alienation of a single subject. |
Cut 1
HD Video/2014 Cut 1 is a sequence of immersive imagery superimposed into a visceral visual experience. Snippets of contours mystifyingly appear via a portal like void, where abstracted human forms vividly emerge. The obscure forms appear to peer back via the screen vacant of consciousness that they are the subject matter. The fluidity of the visuals convey an oil paint aesthetic that slides and transcends colour, texture and pigment. Magnified shots portray a dream like reality that evokes a voyeuristic response in regard to the interrogation of the subjects physical space. |