Statement

Matthew Purvis (mp) doesn’t like the word ‘artist’. He prefers to be called a mechanic. Like academic 19th century French painters, he doesn’t think that he makes art, just machines, and usually machines that don’t work very well. The rest of the time he wishes he was a dog sleeping on a bed of moss in a cave.

He was born in a funeral parlour in rural Canada and has almost been killed by random people half a dozen times. He has worked as a mason, a clergyman, a playwright, a pornographer, a teacher, a journalist and an anarchist. At best he could be described as a completely superfluous man.

Gallery

Solo: Trudeuapia at Good Sport

Group: Proper Names at Good Sport

Group: Eurospa Pop up

Solo: Love is my Reason at The Petrified Forest Gallery

Group: Book Lab at EEL Gallery

Solo: The Hysterical Male at EEL Gallery

Group: Outsider Art at ARE

Secret Artist Auction at ARTA

Performance

Always Crashing in the Same Car (trilogy) commissioned by the NAC & GCTC

Education

PhD in Cultural Mediations from Carleton University (in progress)

MA in Art History from the University of Western Ontario

HBA in Art History & Philosophy from the University of Toronto