Matthew Tumbers is a multi-disciplinary visual artist working across painting, drawing, video and installation. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales in 1999.
Tumbers says about first working with video:
“I entered art school as a confused painter with a lack luster high school education in art. My thoughts were a dry morass of newspaper collage and crushed pastels, so when I was introduced to 'video art’, I suddenly had a medium whereby you could directly channel an idea, a thought through time and space. It truly opened up my world.”
Of his influences he says:
“I think the influences can be seen in the work. There are many sources that have nothing to do with the world of art as well. My videos are scored by Ben Tinker. Being a composer he has a different take on the content of the video, thus his influence is virtually collaborative toward the final realisation of the work. I think however my contemporaries and friends have been seminal in the evolution of my practice. This is often overlooked. For instance, here are some local humans in the arts who have been tangibly influential in one way or another: Mitch Cairns, What, Damien March, TV Moore, Melody Willis, Brian Fuata, Koji Ryui, Matthew Hopkins, Mary MacDougal, and Susan Gibb. These are just to name a few. To me it is your peers who are your primary source of information paired with self-reflexivity rather than say, an artist from Berlin whom you have never met.”
Of his first and latest shows he says:
“When I was 17 I had an oil painting selected for a community arts exhibition. My first video screening was at Planet Hollywood, George St. Sydney in the private cinema in 1997. Nowadays my work appears in screening forums, festivals, commercial art galleries and contemporary art spaces.”
- Writers:
- Scanlines email interview with Matthew Tumbers, 2011.
- Date written:
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