Mat Collishaw (born 1966) is an English artist based in London. He made his debut in the art world more than two decades ago alongside his peers from YBA (Young British Artists) ––a group of visual artists who began to exhibit their work together in London from 1988. He is a graduate of Goldsmith College in London, a place responsible for producing the first generation of YBA artists
1. Do you think your alma mater provided you with the group that led you to become the artist you eventually became? If it weren’t for Goldsmith College, what would be Mat Collishaw doing today?
2. In an interview with Angel Greenham, you said that the contemporary art doesn’t really exist until people are looking at it. Does it mean that audience can decide the kind of art they want to keep alive? Do most artist agree on giving this kind of power to the gaze that reaches for their art?
3. Your method relies on technology a lot. In a parallel universe, if you were to use a more traditional medium as your main practice, what would it be?
4. Your work looks at beauty in its tortured form. In Burning Flowers IV (2003), the flowers are left aflame. It is very continuous and feels like the flowers have been sitting this way forever––without an end to this violence in sight. What happens when a thing of beauty is left agonizing like this? Would you call it a visual comment on mortality?
Burning Flowers IV, 2003.
Framed photograph. 58 x 48 cm
5. After graduating the Goldsmith college, were you ready to see the art world in a different light than the one you were used to of seeing while being an undergrad student? Was there even such a drastic difference?
6. You and your peers from YBA set up exhibitions in the most unusual places, which revolutionized the way art exhibitions were held, especially for young artists. How do you navigate spaces for your exhibitions now? Do your old practices still resurface?
7. You had a Christadelphian upbringing. Did your religious afflictions ever obstruct the way you were producing art? Or were you able to have them coexist in a way that did not threaten the existence of one over the other?
8. Bullet Hole (1988) is one of your best-known work that was exhibited in the legendary Freeze. While it may be gruesome in nature, it shows us that the human nature does take pleasure in being up close with tragedy. How was the response of its initial audience to the one that is just discovering it in this decade?
Bullet Hole, 1988.
Fifteen Light Boxes Cibachrome Mounted, 1988 243.8cm x 365.8cm
9. You were using technology in a time where it wasn’t exactly mainstream to be used in the works of art. What was your research process like? Did you have help from people who were fluent in the language of the material you were trying to get ahold of?
10. In the time of pandemic, have you made adjustments to your practice that is now more of a help than limitation adapted out of given conditions? Would you have thought about making those adjustments regardless of the circumstances?
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