Creating unpopular culture since 2007.
* I have a solo show of male nudes called "The Hysterical Male" on at the EEL Gallery in Toronto from Feb. 1st until Feb. 17th.
* I have a photo installation in the ARE Gallery at 1581 Dundas West from August 5-10.
"All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt." — Susan Sontag
"I started all of those years ago, not because I was any good, but because they were all so bad. And I'm still not much good, but they're still really bad." — Charles Bukowski
"I’m not interested in people in the portrait sense, in the individual sense. I’m interested in people as part of the pictures and as themselves, but anonymous."
— Walker Evans
I grew up in the funeral parlour of a small town. I am a writer by profession but was schooled in philosophy, design and art history.
Although I spent two years training in black and white film photography many years ago, I only started taking photos seriously just over four years ago after I gave up performance art and painting. I am currently in preparation for an MA.
I use both digital and film cameras. Some of the cameras I use are of the 'toy' variety. They were deliberately chosen because of their substantial limitations. Some distort colour, some fill space with noise, some leak light, others crack the images. They each have a distinct eye which I can not entirely control but must learn to work with; I collaborate with the camera.
I use cold lights and flood lights. I like tenebrism. I like scars, bruises, acne and other marks. I will probably accentuate your 'flaws'. I never forget that we're related to monkeys. I'm not sure what nudity really is. I refuse to use Photoshop. It's destroying photography. I'm horrified of white. Any 'white' in my images is actually a very light pink or yellow. I won't shoot in black and white. I'm interested in the materiality of the photo and its content.
I would be glad to work with men or women of any range of experience or body type, though I am particularly interested in plus sized and androgynous models.
I don't do this for commercial reasons. I make miniatures for gallery installations and small books.
Willing to work TFCD.
Check out my websites to see more of my work.
My sites:
http://www.malakoteron.com/main.html
http://www.matthewpurvis.com/
My tumblr:
http://malakoteron.tumblr.com/
My blog:
http://beautyisuglinessatrest.blogspot.com/
My non-nude MM account:
http://www.modelmayhem.com/2355130
No drive by friend requests please. I am here purely to work.