Matthew Darbyshire

Matthew Darbyshire creates vitrines, assemblages, and sculptures, cataloguing beautiful and banal “lifestyle” novelties. His sculptures are often installed in a manner resembling department store displays on broad, short risers, or in tiered Perspex cases, cataloguing similar color schemes or formal similarities. In Untitled: Shelves No. 6 (2009), an array of brightly colored cups, decorative tchotchkes, a hookah, a Buddha’s head, and a petite statue of Christ all take on equal psychic and formal weight in their distribution on three wall-mounted shelves. Darbyshire’s 2009 sculpture Untitled Furniture Island No. 4 presents similar commodities (orange or yellow sneakers, vases, stools, etc.) on a short, square platform, suggesting possible home furnishings, but also the history of formalist painting.

Darbyshire’s work has been exhibited in solo shows at venues including Bloomberg Space in London (2013), Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge (2013), the Zabludowicz Collection (2012), Glasgow’s Tramway (2012), and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (2008), as well as in significant group shows such as The British Art Show 7 (2010-11) and the 2009 Tate Triennial, Altermodern, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud.