Mat Collishaw

Matthew "Mat" Collishaw (born 1966, Nottingham, UK) is an artist based in London, and one of the Young British Artists.

Career

Mat Collishaw Bullet Hole which was on display in the Freeze exhibition.

Collishaw attended Goldsmiths, University of London (1986-9), alongside Damien Hirst and other YBA artists.

He has shown work internationally in many exhibitions including Freeze at Surrey Docks in London, in which Collishaw displayed large scale tiled photographs of a bullet wound in a head; this work is a good indicator of Collishaw’s artistic interests and practices.

His work uses photography and video. His best known work is Bullet Hole which is a closeup photo of what appears to be a bullet hole wound in the scalp of a person's head, mounted on 15 light boxes. Collishaw took the original image from a pathology textbook that actually showed a wound caused by an ice pick.^[1] Bullet Hole is now in the collection of the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Australia.^[2]

Commercial gallery shows include “Controlled” at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York, “The Parable Show” at Galerie Grimm/Rosenfeld in Munich, and “The Passing” at Galeria Helga de Alvear in Madrid.

Collishaw's work was included in “Sensation” at the Royal Academy of Art.

He recently left Haunch of Venison gallery and now works with BlainSouthern in London. Collishaw is represented by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York, Raucci/Santamaria Gallery in Naples and Galerie Analix Forever in Geneva.^[3]

Working practice

Collishaw typically takes imagery which is at once shocking yet strangely beautiful in order to examine the beguiling nature of photography and the seduction of visual imagery.

Collishaw uses contemporary images alongside techniques and styles which are reminiscent of much older art, for example he often utilises a mosaic effect which, while alluding to religious art and Ancient Rome, is also now associated with pixelated digital imagery.

In this way Collishaw brings together a variety of connotations in one piece that is both traditional and contemporary; dichotomies of life and death and attraction and repulsion are central to Collishaw’s art which tests our natural responses to disquieting imagery when dressed as sacred, slick or stunning.

Known most widely for his photographs and videos, Collishaw’s work also includes installation, drawing and painting.

After some years of Jungian Psychotherapy Collishaw's work has recently returned to some of his earliest influences. In the montage 'Orinoco & the ghost' he attempts to reference yet distance himself from the judgement 'Make Good Use of Bad Rubbish' and attemts to draw the viewer in with quotes, trivial and random observation that liberate yet also return to the ideology to 'remember you're a womble'.

Influences

British pathologist, Austin Gresham, wrote a handbook, A Colour Atlas of Forensic Pathology, in 1975. Collishaw said it became "the Britart bible", as a source for explicit images of dead bodies for artwork.^[4][5]

Personal life

Collishaw is married to fellow visual artist Polly Morgan.^{[citation needed]} Collishaw was raised in a Dawn Christadelphian family that chose not to have a television.^[6]

References

1. ^ "Mat Collishaw - Contemporary Artists". Bullet Hole. Saatchi Gallery. http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/mat_collishaw_bullet_hole.htm. Retrieved 2009-04-24. 
2. ^ Gabriella Coslovich (15 January 2011). "A revolt in art". The Age. 
3. ^ (undated) "Tanya Bonakdar Gallery artists page; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery (New York).". http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artist.php. Retrieved 2011-01-27. 
4. ^ Goslett, Miles. "Meet the grandfather of Britart", The Daily Telegraph, 1 July 2007. Retrieved on 12 September 2009.
5. ^ For more on the author of this book see: " Obituary: Professor Austin Gresham histopathologist," The Times, 8 September 2009.
6. ^ The Times April 2, 2008 Mat Collishaw: a shock-jock's deliverance by Rachel Campbell-Johnston

External links

• Official website of Mat Collishaw
• - Raucci/Santamaria Gallery
• – BlainSouthern
• Film about 2010 joint exhibition with Tracey Emin and Paula Rego at the Foundling Museum - The Guardian
• Mat Collishaw at Analix Forever Gallery
• Mat Collishaw at Tanya Bonakdar
• Mat Collishaw – Saatchi Gallery
• Mat Collishaw – Cosmic Gallerie
• Mat Collishaw at Artfacts.Net

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Name	Collishaw, Mat
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Date of birth	1966
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