Welcome to the website of M.J. Yates.

Here you will find a selection of my latest art work.

 

ABSTRACT ART

I work primarily through the language of abstract art, creating paintings, drawings and prints that explore notions of epiphany, and how personal ‘epiphanies’ can be translated into formal abstraction. I use cellular-like shapes to convey ideas about human experience and often these cellular shapes become eyes which represent awareness and consciousness. The works also explore themes like the nature and perception of space. Essentially, what rests at the core of my work is a desire to see images and forms that I have not seen before. I do this by fusing archetypal symbols and motifs with the optical effects of pure geometry. Through this combination I seek to distill new dimensions in aesthetic experience, that are visually gratifying to perceive in the same way that great music is gratifying to listen too.

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ELLIPTICAL MODULATION

The tension between flat pattern and optical depth

My artwork has many reoccurring themes and reference points but my overall concern is with images that relate to the inner landscape of attentive experience, in particular, feelings, sensations and emotions that are experienced directly in the body. Translating this ‘inner’ landscape into imaginative pictures is of course a continually evolving pursuit but is often characterised by circular and elliptical patterning. Symbolically the circles and ellipses often refer to eyes. Eyes in a direct representational sense as pictures of eyes with all the symbolic notions that eyes refer too. Perceiving form, space, colour and tone, what it means to be an embodied human being, flesh and blood, living and breathing and subject to the physical change of time. In a more abstract sense the circles and ellipses act as points of energy. They act as instances of activity which can be used visually as building blocks to be ordered and combined in an infinite number of ways. These building block cells, can then be used to discover new forms when combined in creative and imaginative ways.

TRADITIONAL MEDIA

The sensitivity of real media

I am also interested in the relationship between traditional media (paints and brushes, pencils and paper) and the digital realm of image production and how these two mediums can work and enhance each other so that the whole is greater than the sum. The ability of the computer to process visual images is a very powerful tool, a tool that I am convinced can take traditional media into new and unexplored aesthetic realms.

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DIGITAL VECTORS

A True Digital Print

In the shop section there are numerous artworks for sale in traditional and digital media. All the giclee prints are printed on Hahemuhle photo rag papers using the finest archival quality inks. They are all signed and include a certificate of authenticity which also includes a signature. I hope you enjoy the work and please get in touch if you would like to know more about the art.

Matt Yates