URNY MATTHIOT

Urny Matthiot is Seychelles born and  creates serious work, whether it be through the medium of graphic design (he is principally employed as a visual designer) or through his paintings, made to his personal agenda and passions, and quite immune from the pressures of the market which many of his peers are obliged to be constantly mindful of.

His compositions include historical subjects such as the slavery which blighted Seychelles during the first era of its human occupation. This aspect of Mathiot's work refers to what he calls an 'atrocious' period in the chronology of Seychelles. It represents a process of excision and painful emotion and the resulting work is justifiably disquieting.

Mathiot's method of working is determined by his mood; this is the case with both the artist's graphic and photographic work and his fine art compositions (over which he has a more complete control).

Mathiot is very well aware of the psychology and indeed the pathologies which can under-write creative work. He understands the power of compulsion and the need in some artists to exorcise visceral material through the creative act and thereby understand lives – their own and those being lived by others – better.