It turns out that there's another portal to Wonderland, and this time it's not a rabbit hole in Oxford, but a door on Omega Place in London's Kings Cross. The door in question, which makes a far more salubrious entrance by any standards, is the entrance to All Visual Arts gallery, currently hosting Enclosures, a major retrospective of the astonishing miniature worlds of Charles Matton.
A French artist from the latter half of the 20th century (he died in 2008), Matton was famous for his perspective-warping reconstructions of artists' studios - among them those of Freud, Giacometti and Bacon. At a scale of about 1/7th of their original size, the replicas are much bigger than the average dolls house or architectural model, and give the viewer an eerie sense of being overgrown - present inside the room, but not quite.
The scenes' effectiveness lies also in the painfully beautiful details, such as faithfully faded wallpaper or a broken light socket, and the attention he gives to recreating the mood - with lighting designed to evoke the weather, say, on a wintery afternoon - as well as the context and atmosphere of a given moment.
All Visual Arts has built a labyrinth within the gallery, allowing Matton's clever use of mirrors and light to have maximum impact in each work. In all there are 30 boîtes (enclosures) on show - all made from a variety of materials, including cast and carved resin, as well as wood, paper, plaster and glass.
Described by the artist as 'objective pieces that are the result of a detailed examination of the "realistic truth" of a certain place,' these theatrical wonders revisit memories from his own life, as well as a number of interiors drawn solely from his imagination, recreating sensations such as the loneliness felt in an abandoned hotel corridor or the intimacy of a forgotten and disused library. There is no need for smoking caterpillars here, for Enclosures to tell an epic story.
'Francis Bacon's studio' by Charles Matton
'Homage to Edward Hopper I' by Charles Matton
'Sculpteur de nourissons' by Charles Matton
'Studio of a Contemporary Sculptor III' by Charles Matton
'Studio of a Rhinoceros Sculptor' by by Charles Matton
'Self Portrait in The New York Loft 26th Street' by Charles Matton, 1986
ADDRESS
All Visual Arts
2 Omega Place
Kings Cross
London
N1 9DR
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