Matt Coyle’s ‘Night Stills’ are macabre and voyeuristic – an intimate portrait of the artist and his nocturnal habits. The “decidedly un-artistic yet highly aestheticised” style of the horror movie genre has always been a key influence upon his imagery, resulting in the foreboding sense of restless unease, anxiety and fear that underlies every image.
In his first solo show at Über Gallery, from 1 – 30 August 2008, Matt Coyle exhibits sinister snap-shots of the night. This new series of pen and ink drawings are a reflection of the artist’s own experience; a combination of memories and dreams, fantasy and reality, all with a single imperative: to create drama.
The sense of pictorial narrative present within ‘Night Stills’ stems from Coyle’s work as a graphic novelist, where tension and suspense are essential for creating a visual story. Although these stand alone images are not part of a particular sequence, the feeling of a story unravelling remains, allowing the viewer to make their own interpretations; recalling the fears of their childhood and the effects of dark upon their rationality and reason.
Coyle’s signature use of black ink on white paper has developed over the years, allowing him to explore the possibilities of line and the dramatic effects of light and shadow. There is a stylized uniformity in this collection that links it, adding to the sense of narrative and exaggerating its sinister qualities. His draughtsmanship is impossibly good. Each mark
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