The British artis Matthew Picton engages with the tradition of humanising the city by deconstructing the clean, uncompromising aesthetic of the cartographic city plan and imbuing it with the unique history and culture of each place.
For his work about London, Matthew Picton did extensive research about the original bomb damage maps of wartime.
A meticulous record was kept of the damage that occurred to every street and building, and the maps were colour coded to reflect the level of destruction.
Venice, another work by Matthew Picton, is constructed from excerpts of Death in Venice written by Thomas Mann after his visit to the city in 1911.
Matthew Picton depicts these cities as active participants, affected by outside sources and shaped by their internal social structure. The city becomes a subject and an entity of its own.
London 1666
London 1940-4 Southwark (detail)
Dresden Burnt (detail)
Venice
Venice (detail)
Lower Manhattan Smoke
Images courtesy of Matthew Picton
Discover: matthewpicton.com
