Matthew Hawtin: New Paintings

This exhibition continues the Art Gallery of Windsor`s commitment to profiling emerging Windsor artists. Matthew Hawtin`s paintings are indicative of a new generation of visual artists who are re-assessing modernist abstraction, a longstanding tradition in this region. Through subtle shifts in colour, proportion, and shape the artist explores the nuanced language of abstract painting. His shaped canvases refer as much to colour field painting as to minimalist sculpture, such as the cool industrial aesthetic of Donald Judd`s modular sculptures. The artist also cites as influences architecture, literature and film. Hawtin`s cool aesthetic of pure colour applied with subtle surface gesture is undermined by evocative titles that put into question the assumption that non-objective art is emotionally empty. His paintings express the abstract nature of thought and emotion through a reductive perceptual experience.