ParaLand

2013 - 2018

​

‘Paraland’ is a concept and practice that works through series, in order to challenge perceptions of reality. Matthew John Atkinson creates fictitious ethereal hinterlands that are eerily constructed and ambiguous. In his paintings he recreates a different reality, an unknowable universe, within which paradoxical situations and entities come to life.

Paintings appear threateningly mysterious and otherworldly, with depictions of Brothers Grimm and Disney like bird Houses that contain a multitude of preloaded connotations; embodying everything from the darkly sinister to the hopeful and elevated.

Toy model houses seem to intimate an over simplification of conceptual systems, yet are used allegorically to invite the viewer into the artist’s universe in order to deal with the fundamental complexities of our understanding of systems that form our existence.