This week, we welcomed our newest curatorial board member, Dr Matthew Eve - design curator, writer, historian and illustrator, and our final piece to the curatorial puzzle. Specialising in illustration and figurative printmaking, painting and drawing, with a particular interest in the surreal, Dr Matthew Eve will lend his expertise to discovering the most interesting and imaginative art on the site. We believe that art is subjective, so let's celebrate its diversity!
Who's Dr Matthew Eve?
Dr Matthew Eve is a freelance exhibition curator, writer, historian and illustrator and has a doctorate in the History of Art from the University of Oxford. In 2013, he guest curated the exhibition, 'Picture This: Children’s Illustrated Classics' for the British Library, which subsequently went on tour to The Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle and The River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames. He has worked as archivist, cataloguer and biographer to the Estate of the British designer Enid Marx, and as an adviser on exhibitions and collections, including the Enid Marx Archive at the V&A Museum, the Marx-Lambert Collection of Folk Art at Compton Verney and 'Enid Marx: Print, Pattern and Popular Art' at the House of Illustration.
For the past 15 years, he has been a pre-selection jury member and judge on six volumes of Lurzer's Archive's '200 Best Illustrators worldwide. He is also a member of the Art Workers' Guild, chairman of The Wilfred Josephs Society and has sat on the committees of both The Children's Books History Society and Imaginative Book Illustration Society (IBIS).
Figurative art
Amidst all of Dr Matthew Eve's endeavours, he has curated his very first collection of figurative art for Artfinder. He says,
"My first collection for Artfinder reflects my interest in figurative and surreal works of art.
"There are formal portraits, figures in repose and action and quirky, perhaps even disarming characters, situated in dreamlike places looking into and out of the picture plane.
"I've included monochrome and full colour work covering a great wealth of media: from printed, painted, photographed and drawn to sculpted, carved and strung - and for every conceivable pocket! It's been a great pleasure looking through so much excellent work and I hope you'll find inspiration from my selection."
Shop Dr Matthew Eve's curated collection
Cover image via Leah Lewman
