Lot 6 - Matthew Clifton - Drawing of Elephant: Beacon

Colour pencil on wood
2025
A6 (10x15cm)
Original Artwork
Signed on Verso
Curated by Moriah Ogunbiyi

About

Matthew Clifton is an artist working primarily through painting and drawing. Clifton’s work is an exploration of the composite image rooted in an archive of compulsively accumulated reference photographs, objects and found ephemera. Drawing on a broad spectrum of influences ranging from vernacular architecture and art deco motifs to crusty phone photographs and takeaway menus, Clifton mutates and remodels the familiar, ultimately creating an anxious and often unhinged attempt to grasp both the tenderness and despair of our transient contemporary life.⁣

Education

2012-2015
BA (Hons) Fine Art Drawing, Camberwell College of Arts

Solo Exhibitions

Terra Horse, The Door, London, 2016

Group Exhibitions

2024
Artwalks.xyz, Broadway Gallery & Letchworth Town Centre, Letchworth, UK
Great Expectations, Curated by Kollektiv Collective at General Assembly, London, UK
2023
All The Small Things, Soup Gallery, London, UK
Downstairs, Changing Room Gallery X House of St Barnabas, London, UK
2022
Interior Castles, Harts Lane, London, UK
Tree and Leaf, Hannah Barry Gallery, London, UK
2020
A Land of Incomparable Beauty, Collective Ending, London, UK
2017
A History of Drawing, Camberwell Space, London, UK

Statement about AOAP Submitted Artwork

These drawings are a homage to the old Elephant & Castle shopping centre. A place which housed a community of small businesses, independent food vendors, local events and of course, bowling. For the parties who decided its fate (Southwark Council and the property developers) the community of the area remains an afterthought. The demolition coincided with my abrupt departure from London. I hope there is a way for the spirit to live on in whatever replaces it, and to some extent within these drawings.