a mural artist
“I spent a long time with other artists putting on exhibitions trying to make a name for myself”
There are artist that craft their work onto canvas and artists that pencil their vision onto paper. Then there are other artists that have chosen a different surface or medium to display their work. This is Mats story and his choice.
From Mats earliest memories, he recalls being in his parents garden, painting on an easel! He’d use to recreate battle scenes from Star Wars, or make up his own, making the sounds of the lasers being fired as he painted. With that kind of imagination and his love of art, his future path seemed to be well mapped out to some extent. He does remember at school that he wanted to be an architect but when he found out it was 7 years of studying, he kicked that idea into touch. So, he went to Art College after his A-Levels and then went to Derby University to do a Fine Art degree. Ironically, after all that time he ended up studying art for 7 years in total.
After Mat finished Uni, he fancied moving away from Hull. He did think of a move to London, but thought he’d try Dublin instead. His wife at the time was from there so they made the move. He stayed there for a few years, doing creative stuff, bar management work etc. The start of a family followed but he then made a choice in life to either bring his new born son up in a inner city environment or moving to Cornwall to be by the sea. We now know how that panned out.
The whole idea to move to Cornwall for Mat was to bring his son up some where nice and for him to get back into painting. He needed to get creative again. He spent a long time with other artists putting on exhibitions trying to make a name for myself. It took him a while as a practicing artist and some saw his work as a little too “urban”, but that was Mats style. A move from St Ives to Penzance further pushed him on and commissioned work followed. His canvas these days are walls, buildings and commercial premises, or anywhere thats a well established Mural artist can display their work and get paid for it.
We live in a part of the UK where art is seen as an integral part of the lifestyles we lead. There’s a huge similarity to what is generally crafted here so Mats work offers something a little more original and very niche.
Cheers Mat
