Mathew Hale

Mathew Hale’s collages, projections, sculptures, and installations conjure images and associations from fragments of material inherited from the past. The artist’s practice is largely improvisational, very much in the spirit of the surrealist écriture automatique. Drawing from (and on) materials with disparate origins, dates, and meanings, moments from the past and present - and fragments of reality and fiction - are combined to form vital narratives both provocative and ruminative. The resulting works function as a kind of constructed memory. Displayed in custom artist’s frames, the works in his "MIRIAM" series combine printed imagery and text with handwritten notes, drawings, and three-dimensional objects. This body of work constructs intimate constellations around imagined characters living in historical Germany, and shares an earlier emphasis on process and intimacy, favoring montage over narrative.

Hale’s recent exhibitions include Wentrup in Berlin, Galerie Michel Rein in Paris, Peer in London, Art Berlin Contemporary, the Australian Center for Contemporary Art, and The Narrows in Melbourne. DIE MÜNZE (2011) has screened once before at the Museum of Modern Art as part of their “Modern Mondays” program.