Matt Bryans

Based in London and working internationally, Matt Bryans is known for his obsessive process-oriented projects. Through labor-intensive techniques such as erasure, burning, hammering, and sanding, Bryans creates new narratives by transforming humble materials such as newspaper, wood, mud, and foil, into drawings, installations, and large-scale collages. For a 2008 series, Bryans erased magazine photographs down to the newsprint, then used the pages to paper gallery walls, creating immersive installations that inspired awe for both the obsessiveness of the process and the abundance of the materials. In 2009 Bryans took a road trip, during which he created pieces from the detritus he found along the way—washed up footballs to a dead hedgehog and parts of burned out cars. As the pieces evolved, Bryans obsessively snapped over 2,500 photographs, which he later displayed at the gallery in 12-foot long grids.