Fruit and Vegetable Prints for Foodies

Inspired by the petite monochrome watercolours I painted during Lockdown in 2020, these full colour fruit and vegetable digital prints are on sale via my Etsy shop.

Comprising an orange, an apple, a plum, a garlic bulb, a mushroom and a red onion, these are all reproductions of original monochrome paintings of mine, originally done in watercolour on small A6 pieces of card.

Some of the red painted watercolours I did of food. My favourites are now available to buy as prints in glorious technicolour.

I added the colours digitally afterwards specially for the A4 print versions. The digital prints on 310gsm Museum Heritage A4 size paper are available individually but also as in fruity or vegetable bundles of 3, as shown here. They are sold as signed and unframed here.

ING Discerning Eye Exhibition 2020

I'm so pleased to announce that my painting 'Check Your Travel' has been awarded the ING Discerning Eye Cityscape Prize as part of the 2020 ING Discerning Eye Exhibition.

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It's the first time I've entered the open call and I made the selection with it and another painting entitled ‘Look Both Ways’. Normally at the Mall Galleries, this year the show is online, due to our old friend Covid-19. To view the whole ING Discerning Eye 2020 Exhibition online (to buy these works and art from many other artists) click here. Thanks to all the judges involved, but especially to David Remfry RA and Mervyn Metcalf for selecting my works to be shown in their curated areas of the exhibition.

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Check Your Travel

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The scenes I’ve painted are both informed by the view from the twelfth floor of the iconic tower of No.1 Croydon, south London (also known by many other names: NLA Tower, The 50p Building, The Thru’penny bit Building). Artworks tend to show the architecture of this Croydon landmark itself, but I thought that the view of the streets below more interesting in this case.

I love the riot of marks, shapes and colours that are drawn across London’s roads, always with a purpose to inform, warn or highlight things but I don’t think people appreciate their aesthetic qualities too. There are probably more litres of paint poured and drawn across the tarmac that any artist would use in a lifetime. To accompany the barriers and markings on the street, there are often instructions telling people what to do (in a variety of helpful but serious tones of voice).

In a world where the delivery of data and information is seemingly never ending, even the physical spaces we travel through in cities, and walk on, can contain commands or points of information for us.

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Look Both Ways

To go straight to my artworks in the exhibition, use these two links: Check Your Travel and Look Both Ways.

To view the pieces in the context of each of the selectors’ rooms, alongside their other chosen artists, click on either David Remfry RA or Mervyn Metcalf.

The twelfth floor of No.1 Croydon

“The ING Discerning Eye is an annual show of small-scale artworks renowned for its commitment to championing emerging artists, its democratic selection process, and its unique curatorial approach.

A panel of six prominent figures from the art world - two artists, two collectors and two critics - select small artworks in any medium for the annual exhibition, curating six shows within the whole.

This year, the exhibited artworks were selected by artists Dale Lewis and David Remfry RA, collectors Beverley Knight MBE and Mervyn Metcalf, as well as critics Jo Baring and Tabish Khan.

For the first time in its history, the exhibition will be open online for six weeks on www.ingdeexhibition.org, running until Christmas and the New Year, and providing the perfect opportunity to share the gift of art with friends and family or treat yourself to a new piece of artwork for the holidays. ”

— http://www.artsjobs.org.uk/arts-news/post/ing-discerning-eye-2020-exhibition/

Crystal Palace Subway T-Shirts

I’ve launched a new clothing offshoot called ‘Brickworks by Matt Bannister’.

The designs are all inspired by the architecture of London, with my first range taking direct inspiration from the Crystal Palace Subway near Crystal Palace Park. Each t-shirt features a bold hand-drawn style pattern based on the archways and columns that formed part of a lost Victorian Crystal Palace railway station. The subway space still exists today, though, and is open to visitors on special days of the year.

The t-shirts come in two main styles - Classic and Crew Neck. The Classic shape is one often, but not exclusively, worn by men. The Crew Neck kind is one often, but not exclusively, worn by women.

Here’s and idea of some of the colours the t-shirts are available in, but visit https://brickworks.teemill.com to see the full range. For fans of Crystal Palace, south London, bold design, the SE20 and SE19 postcodes, the Crystal Palace Subway - or just if you want to look good!

Exhibition 104 at the Amina Malik Gallery

Four of my crane artworks feature in a new group show at the Amina Malik Gallery, in South Norwood, London, called 'Exhibition 104'. The display runs from 4th August - 4th September 2020. For more details visit www.aminamalik.com

‘Cranes No. 2’ - Ink, acrylic on paper. 2020

A gallery visitor looks at work by Matt Bannister

Here's a flavour below of some of the different work on show from over 20 artists who created new work during the height of Lockdown.

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'Imagine' by Justyna Borkowska-Rozanska

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'The Smoker' by Laura Belso

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Works by Charlotte McCarthy

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'Stambourne Woods' by David Wolverson

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'Blown Out' by Audrey Gillespie

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'TV Dinner' by Olivia Steen

Shared Spaces - process and construction

'Shared Spaces' is a piece I made at the end of last year, but I have only recently framed and documented it. To be honest, it was a bit of an experiment using different materials, and a slight departure from my normally detailed paintings. It's inspired by silhouettes on the skyline and the juxtaposing of natural vs. manmade structures. The reflective materials are normally used in the manufacture of protective clothing. I've employed them here to echo the barriers, warnings, incidents, protections, and safety measures of modern life.

Acrylic paint sketches were made initially of the trees, insects and cranes, working from reference photos.

I began making the squares and rectangles by covering pieces of wood with the different reflective materials, effectively stretching mini pieces of canvas over each block.

Once I had all the three dimensional elements, I began finessing how I wanted them to be arranged together.

I tried to get the composition so that the different surfaces were as diverse as possible, and not have the same colours too close to each other.

The images of the insects, cranes and trees were transferred on to each surface using pencil. I then carefully painted over these using gloss acrylic paint. This is an image of a churchyard beetle.

The trees were all drawn from photos I had taken locally. The insects are all native species to the UK. Shown here is an earwig and an ant.

As each drawing was completed, the elements began to accumulate.

I had to secure everything together on the back, using screws and hardboard. The final piece is fairly heavy, as each square and rectangle is solid, not a canvas on a frame. The construction over all is a little haphazard and not as slick as I’d hoped, but hey - it was always and experiment. I’d like to explore working with more reflective surfaces in the future, though.

I’ve included here a link to a video showing how the artwork looks under varying light sources. This shows how the different materials respond, something not conveyed really by a still image.