About

My current focus is an endeavor to develop mark making and gesture through the act of movement made by the human body. I am interested in activating the body through its physicality as a tool or production mechanism. I have begun the process of documenting the body as artifact within the conceptual context of a bodiless future.

I am driven to explore new ways of feeling, seeing, feeling, making, feeling, thinking about our relationship with the built environment. Even if we do not physically interact with a constructed space, how does it affect our ability to think creatively? As an initial approach to this field of exploration I have taken steps to map the human body as a mark-making object of form and mass.

Artworks are restricted by the surface area of their application. My approach to these artworks considers the constructed space as an influence on my body, as my body is informed by that space.

My practice continues to ask the viewer to consider the visual remnant of our flesh as a static object that aspires to the act of movement as well as an event of movement that has been inactivated by the built environment.

Matthew Thorley is an Australian-born multi-disciplinary artist currently working in the USA. He has been responding to the built environment through the use of his body as an art tool. Thorley attempts to evaluate constructed spaces with the intention of interpreting an alternative understanding using installations and architectural interventions. He has exhibited internationally, including Australia, North America, Europe and Asia. Collaborative video work Mapping The Field, was recently selected to exhibit at the Czong Institute for Contemporary Art Museum in South Korea in 2024.