through diverse practices including film, installation, performance, and photography, matthieu examines the symbolic and emotional aspects of situations and places, personal history, and collective memory.

one of his recurring themes is the nature of time. fascinated by how and why a particular moment in time stands out and how it relates to specific points of arrival and departure, he foregrounds historical consciousness through a multiple focus on the present and crucial pasts.

how do twists and turns of individual fates fit into theories of time, place, and the meaning of human lives? by asking himself that question, his work becomes a balancing act between interconnectedness and the search for lost time.

much like Proust’s “à la recherche du temps perdu”’, charneau depicts his journey through an allegorical search for truth with metaphors that enrich a collective pictorial language.

he often incorporates stills from Super 8 films and digital recordings into sequences, which appropriate cinema’s frame-by-frame format. more symbol and metaphor than narrative, it expresses his need to remember and record how one fragment of a single moment in time leads to the next.

his preference for using available light, blurring, and graininess has figures dissolving into shadow and film grain. they stand as timeless fragments of life, moments of intimacy, exploring the tension between idealism and existential realities.

the complexity of matthieu charneau’s work is as much about the cycle of creation, destruction, and regeneration as it is about continuity and cosmic redundancy.

matthieu’s work has been shown in both solo and group exhibitions, at art galleries such as envoy enterprises, empirical nonsense, and the feature hudson foundation in new york.

he is based in new york city.

- Jimi Dams @ envoy enterprises art gallery -