Steve Mathews
Mathews is a multi-disciplinary artist working in mixed media, fictive story-telling and the agency of found objects.
He has a diploma in Art and Design from Putney School of Art and has attended year-long professional practice courses at Newlyn School of Art and Morley College. He has exhibited groups shows such as “Slow Looking” at Morley College and a solo show “Painterly Constructions” at Putney School of Art..
Mixed media work explores the beauty of weathered surfaces, where layers peel, blend, and erode into unexpected compositions. Inspired by the organic textures of aged painted walls and doors in the urban environment or corroded metals fences and posts in the rural landscape, he translates these chance formations into abstract paintings. This process driven work builds up and strips back to reveal hidden depths. He seeks to capture the interplay of color, texture, and time—turning decay into dynamic, expressive art that invites viewers to find their own meanings within the surfaces. He increasingly works on projects and bodies of work.
Mathews fictive story telling such as “The Flaneurs…Lost in the City” and “ The Curious tale of the Fairy Liquid bottle” are installation projects and containers for not serious but serious look at truth, history and how we shape it. The fact that we can create history is interesting at this specific time in culture when histories and power structures are being questioned and dismantled. A new show of this work “The Flaneurs…Lost in the City” and his first site specific installation was at Olympic Studio Records, Barnes in May 2025.
2026 will see “Beautifully Different” at a group show and at allotments around London. "Beautifully Different is about transforming the hidden and discarded into something new and meaningful. The hidden here is based on found objects (porcelain, clay pipes, glass, pottery, oyster shells) from his allotment. They relate to the passing of time, traces of lives lived, objects of historical resonance resurrected to reveal hidden beauty.
Contact @stevedmathews. art@steve-mathews.co.uk
