Matthew Best

Artist Statement

I am an amateur forager: I explore suburban public spaces in search of edible wild fruits and vegetables. A body of work slowly emerged from this activity. I began recording my trips in my sketchbook, sketching plants first as the means of recording unidentified plants for later identification and later as a way of collecting natural forms that I would later filter into my paintings. As my knowledge of wild foods and my immediate surroundings grew, the project took on a greater personal significance and the forms taken from these trips began to appear in my paintings.
The aim of this work was to look at two things, the first, an examination of the act of looking itself, and second, a new perspective on food; where it comes from and a consideration for alternate ways in which it can be acquired. The act of searching has altered my relationship with my surroundings, providing me with a very direct relationship the land. These paintings are an attempt to translate the act of searching into the language of painting, reducing the broad spaces of suburban parks and streets to the much smaller scale of a painting. The changes and contrast in forms, colors and patterns mimic this search, the eye is moved around the composition by these variations and the image reveals itself.