Matthew Houlding, selected for the British Art Show 6 and represented by Ceri Hand Gallery, will be exhibiting new and existing work.

Venue: Newbridge Works

Houlding's new sculptures and collages are an homage to the utopian zeal of modern architecture and Hockney's Bigger Splash painting.

Drawing on Structuralist and Formalist ideas of architectural design and the relationships between intersecting materials and planes, contrasting geometry is framed by bold, primary coloured Perspex, which casts a Californian sunny glow over split level condo-like exteriors and interiors.

'Matthew Houlding makes miniature make-believe real estate out of DIY materials. Roughly cut chipboard, Formica and Perspex are slotted together to make futuristic dwellings fit for occupation only by the imagination. The structures are afforded conviction through Houlding's knowing appropriation of early modernist, structuralist and formalist compositional conventions. The severe and forbidding geometry of his little houses is balanced by an air of almost utopian hedonism and luxury. The work is made all the more strong by the artist's reluctance to admit whether these are desirable or dreadful properties.'

Robert Clark, The Guardian