Matthew Ferguson was born in Barrie, Ontario in 1988. A passion for creating led him to study at Brock University where he graduated with a BFA in Fine Art. While fear of uncertainty and an injured hand mired his early career, they also internalized within him an understanding for the resilience and reverence required to create art at a professional level. At present, he continues to live and work in Barrie, where he is a member of Spare Room Artist’s Studios.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

My work explores themes of materiality and the relationship between form and function through paralleling the organic elements of corporeal subjects with human-made materials.
Because life cannot exist without some form of a vessel, my use and exploration of the body is an attempt at utilizing subject matter with an almost universal quality; by rendering synthetic materials into organic configurations, I reference the fact that all people are made of the same fundamental components and require the same basic needs.
In this piece I explore stress and the feeling of discomfort that it creates both physically and mentally. By removing/severing the wires of several muscle groups in the neck (where I personally experience stress), I seek to convey a sense of dysfunction.