Force Majeure 

2023

︎Metivier Talks: Matthew Schofield and Melissa Bennett in Conversation︎︎︎


Matthew Schofield is fascinated with everyday photographs; the images themselves, as well the motivations and psyche of the photographers that create them. He combines these interests with a remarkable facility for painting detail, colour and light. Earlier in his career, Schofield worked from printed photographs and colour slides, recreating them in a 1:1 scale. Recently, an important shift happened when he began working directly from digital files. It allows him to zoom in on details and stitch photographs together. An aesthetic choice as well as a conceptual one, he includes the curved borders of the composite images as part of the completed paintings.

The paintings in Force Majeure are based on Schofield’s own photographs from different decades, countries and encounters including locations around his neighbourhood near Trinity Bellwood Park in downtown Toronto. He acts as his own curator, selecting photographs that allude to the notion of force majeure, how unforeseeable events and circumstances can elicit change in our surroundings. This new body of work highlights another important theme in his work which is the narrative. Schofield intentionally seeks out compositions that he is challenged by, avoiding expectation or derivation. The subjects he selects, both as photographer and painter, offer unexpected glimpses of our everyday lives and encourage our imaginations to go beyond the fleeting moment that is captured.

I started to look back through my archive of photographs that I had from over the last two decades. It’s interesting when you see them as a thumbnail versus through the viewfinder. The image pops out at you like, “that looks attractive, that's something I want to reinvestigate”. It became an idea that I thought would be worth exploring and investigating. I started to go through old digital photographs, and I was struck by how I’ve changed from the person that took the photograph several years ago. It’s not the same person that's going to do a painting of the photograph. I’m intrigued by this notion of self-exploration over the distance of time.

Alley Graffiti
9.2 x 12.7 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022
Washington pillars 
12.75 x 8.3 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022


Streetcar
12.75 x 9.4 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022

Church ceiling
9.7 x 14.5 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022
Reichstag
12.3 x 24.7 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022



Art institute
11.8 x 16 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022


Trinity Bellwoods pool
11.25 x 19.8 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022

Basketball net
16 x 11.8 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022

Hotel pool
14.5 x 12.25 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022


Airplane Tarmac
19.125 x 10.75 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2021


A motel parking lot
8.75 x 13 inches

Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2021

Cockpit at the Smithsonian
11.375 x 12.75 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022


Daniel Chester French's sculpture of Abraham Lincoln
10.75 x 7.25 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022
Everglades
12.75 x 8.5 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022


Optimist
13 x 10 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022


Space history at the Smithsonian
8.75 x 13 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2022
Take down
9.34 x 13 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2021


View from St. Pauls
12.75 x 8.5 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2021

The End of the day
13 x 10 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2021

Trinity Bellwoods pool closed
13 x 7.316 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2021

Carlos Cruz Diez dazzle ship drydock
13 x 8.5 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2021

Dam Between Toronto and Ottawa
12.5 x 21.25 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2023

Train Yard
9.5 x 15.5  inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2023
Royal Winter Fair
9.75 x 29.75 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2023

Toronto West View
12.5 x 13 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2023

No Frills
12.5 x 18 inches
Oil on mylar on aluminum panel
2023