Matthew Darbyshire

Matthew Darbyshire (b.1977) lives and works in Rochester, Kent. He studied at The Slade School of Fine Art, London and Royal Academy Schools, London. He has exhibited widely in major London institutions including Tate Britain, The ICA, The Hayward Gallery, Gasworks and The Royal Academy, and elsewhere in the UK including The Hepworth, Wakefield, Kettles Yard, Cambridge, Tramway, Glasgow, Manchester City Art Gallery and Nottingham Castle. He has exhibited in museums and commercial galleries across Europe, America and Asia. Darbyshire currently has permanent public commissions being realised in the UK and Holland. Darbyshire has works in collections including  Arts Council Collection, UK; Government Art Collection, UK; Goss Michael Foundation, US; Saatchi Collection, UK; Hepworth Gallery, UK; Kadist Art Foundation, FR; Deutsche Bank Collection, UK; Zabludowicz Collection, UK; Dover St Arts Club, UK; Collection Native Informant, US; Centre National Arts Plastiques, FR. He has teaching fellowships from The Slade, London, Kingston University and Anglia Ruskin University. He is currently hosting the Open School East programme in Margate where he has devised the curriculum. Matthew is represented by Herald St Gallery, London and Jousse Enterprise, Paris.

Matthew Darbyshire lives and works in London. Darbyshire creates sculptures and installations, often using characteristic day-glo colors. His practice explores the ways in which design – including architectural, interior, furniture, fashion and graphic design – has become inextricably bound with a consensual service-oriented culture, while reflecting upon contemporary art’s own involvement within this system. Darbyshire’s work often involves putting on display sought-after items – such as the iPod, the Muji bed and the Fitz Hansen’s Arne Jacobsen chair – and contemporary architectural features as material evidence of an increasingly pervasive, non-specific and uniform design language associated with pre-packaged lifestyles, which has developed as a result of globalization and expanding retail markets, shaping urban processes of regeneration on a more local level. Rather than emphasizing their seductive and tactile qualities, Darbyshire’s impartial installations aim to elicit an intellectual response to these ubiquitous design elements.

Recent solo exhibitions include"Jousse Entreprise", Paris, FR (2017),  "Zero Zones", Nottingham Castle, Nottingham, UK (2017), "Passive Sensor", Herald St, London, UK (2016), “Elis” at Herald St., London (2010), “Funhouse” at Hayward Project Space, London (2009), “Furniture Islands” at Outpost, Norwich (2009), “Nought to Sixty” at the ICA-Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2008) and “Blades House” at Gasworks, London (2008). Darbyshire’s work has also been shown as part of “Altermodern”, the 4th Tate Triennial, Tate Britain, London (2009), “Other Worlds: The Hayward Gallery Project Space in South Korea”, Platform 2009, Seoul (2009), “Eat Me - Drink Me” at The Goss-Michael Foundation, Dallas (2008), “Supernova” at Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami (2007) and “Sixteen Golf Course Markers”, a special commission as part of Zoo Art Fair, London (2005). Darbyshire will also be featured in the forthcoming “British Art Show” commencing in October in 2010.

Matthew Darbyshire is represented by Herald St., London.

For additional information about this artist, visit Mutual Art