Matthieu Claus

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Matthieu Claus's work starts from what remains: scrap, traces of use, and materials that have lost their original function. These remnants are not collected for what they once were, but for what they can still become within the painting process.

By scraping, overpainting, and rearranging, an image emerges that does not develop linearly. Interventions are resumed, shifted, or partially reversed. Not everything can be controlled: the material offers resistance, slows things down, or forces different decisions. The work grows within that interplay between intention and what eludes it.

The paintings do not function as representations, but as spaces in which actions and time remain visible. Layers do not disappear completely, but continue to play a role as underlying structures that keep influencing the image. What becomes visible is not merely constructed, but also the result of what could not be completely erased.

Transience appears here not as an endpoint, but as an active force within the work. Wear, correction, and resumption are not steps toward a finished image, but keep the painting in motion. Meaning is not fixed, but shifts in the encounter with the viewer and in what continues to work after looking stops.