A BLURRING OF EDGES: MATTHEW’S IMAGES OF SOCIAL COMMENTARY AT NEWPORT

Pointed engagement of social commentary, coupled with experimentalism with the presentation of photography as a medium are both hallmarks that define the artwork of photographer and installation artist Annu Palakunnathu Matthew.

Through January 9, 2022 at Newport Art Museum, audiences can experience Matthew’s mid-career retrospective, “ReVision,” curated by Dr. Francine Weiss. The show is installed in four museum galleries that are located in the John N.A. Griswold House. The galleries relate a range in approach by the artist, from intimate dissolving animations on small wall hung iPad screens framed as traditional photographs, to monumental projected videos and more traditional appearing photographs.

A simple looking, but complex to achieve, installation by Matthew fills one gallery and includes digitized World War II film footage projected onto dhotis, traditional Indian clothing worn by men, juxtaposed with laser-cut crystals, which are 3D representations of family photographs of relatives serving in the British Forces during the war.

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