Matthew Hawtin

Matthew Hawtin (b. 1972) infuses his unique works with an aesthetic language that interrogates the object-hood of painting at an intersection between sculpture, design and architecture. The Torqued Series began in 1998 as an investigation of the fundamental elements of painting - line, colour, shape and form - through the use of distinctively constructed stretchers Hawtin made for his pieces, literally "torquing" the painting surface by abstracting the joints of his canvases. This concept of abstracting the object-hood of traditional paintings evolved over the years, resulting in Hawtin's "Torqued Panels" emerging in 2009 out of the desire to remove the physical square structure of the paintings to focus on creating a fluidity of the surface structure. Hawtin engineered fibreglass panels and custom mounting brackets to achieve painted torqued surfaces in varying sizes, shapes and colours. The panels are mounted in such a way that they literally appear to be propelled in space as ambiguous structures, floating inches away from the wall and thus furthering our preconceived notions of how paintings traditionally exist as objects in our physical world.

Born in the UK and raised in Canada, Matthew Hawtin studied Fine Art at York University in Toronto. After graduating in 1994 he gave himself 5 years to "unlearn," what he had been taught in order to find his own artistic language. Hawtin’s talent and creative achievements are also demonstrated by artwork created for music releases, DJing, and music production. Outstanding exhibition projects "Dimensions," in 2012 and 2019, and "Transposing," in 2016 were influenced by the industrial and cultural landscape of the Windsor/Detroit area. These exhibitions highlighted the notions of repetition, personalization, and futurism layered within Hawtin’s work. Hawtin has been a practicing artist for over 20 years and has exhibited widely across Canada, the USA, and Europe. His work is featured in many private and public collections throughout the world.