New Paintings
Matthew Webber

9-29 May 2026

Opening times
Saturdays 11-2pm

I was born and raised in Suffolk, but have lived in London since leaving Art School in the late nineties.  

My rural upbringing led me to seek out the greenest part of London that we could find, and my home and studio is located a stone’s throw from Epping Forest in Aldersbrook. As a result, many of my paintings are inspired and influenced by my experience of these green spaces and, although I’m not exactly a landscape painter, the paintings almost always use the local environment as a starting point.

I ride through the Forest most days – my GoPro camera trained on the forest canopy above, or on the trails that I pass through, and the blurred imagery of these short films forms the basis of the structures that appear in my work.

I call my process ‘Unpainting' – multiple layers of oil and acrylic are methodically applied over a period of months or sometimes years, creating a dense block of imagery and paint, which is subsequently scraped, sanded and jet-washed away. This reversal of the process creates new and accidental connections and relationships, as each stage of the making reveals itself – all the way back to the very first mark.

The method of making these works often resembles sculpture or carving more than painting. Long-buried colours and structures emerge through the surface, creating an intricately interwoven network of lines and motifs in which both the city and the woodland landscape in which the work had its origin now reappear.

At this stage the multiple layers of accumulated paint will either coalesce to form a finished work of art, or disappear completely, to be started again from scratch.

Coming Soon:
Flower Power by Rose Matthews

11 June-14 August 2026

Thursday 11 June Private viewing 6-9pm

Opening times
Saturdays 13/20/27 June 2-5pm
Thursday 18 June 5-7pm
Other times by appointment

I guess I was a sixties teenager and remember the hippie festivals and the ‘flowery music’. So flowers were a theme amongst that time. I was also a nature lover and family holidays to the wilds of Ireland out of the London smoke were a great escape. I was a bit of a dreamer in the natural world.

Art at school was a background interest until I got to O level. However my interest changed and continued in further education with psychology and social work, apart from a gap year in France where I soaked up art and art books.

I think fertility and art are closely linked and when I had my daughter I created with her and played and explored different mediums, including pottery and 3d, however I decided to start painting and basically was self taught alongside studying foundational art in Swansea and other special interest courses in watercolour and other mixed media.

I love colour so flowers offer that in abundance as well as texture. I sometimes paint loosely and abstraction as well as offering a feel good factor. I felt like I was working in an imaginary garden when I did these paintings. Hope you enjoy them too!! 

Visit www.stratfordunitariangallery.co.uk