Expressions of an Imagination - PLOWZart and the Prawn
Canalside Heritage Centre Weir View Room and Tearoom, 1st May - 26th May, Free Admission

Matthew Plowright (PLOWZart) is a Beeston based artist and has long had an interest in producing art from his imagination. (Some of his earliest memories as a child are of drawing and dressing up).

In 2010 Matt graduated from Leeds College of Art, where he studied his degree, perhaps surprisingly, in printed textiles and surface pattern. Luckily having the freedom to write his own project briefs, he realised he was working entirely different to the other people on his course, developing his own technical processes, inspired by various surreal and fantastic references.

He developed his character Rodger the Prawn and began creating adventures around the sea creature’s life on land. After graduating Matthew quickly set about writing and illustrating 13 Rodger the Prawn & The Magical Pantry books, though he found the last 2 or 3 a bit of an effort. Due to a Diagnosis of Bi-Polar in 2014 and subsequent medication, he finished the final book during lockdown and hopes to see the series published one day.

Alongside the series and as his sole focus since, Matt has developed his painting process, working either in mixed media or acrylic on canvas and preferring to work as imaginatively as possible. Due to his condition and general flows in and out of mood, he occasionally has to seek out more literal subjects to paint which keep him occupied and his mind relatively at ease. The work in this exhibition is from his portfolio since 2011, with his recently developed animal-headed characters in period costume series as an obvious theme displaying his obsession for detail, intense layer of colour, sense of humor, magic, and mystery. Rodger the prawn features in some of these paintings, often as a small detail and stars on the big screen in a 10-minute, hand drawn/edited stop- motion animation opening sequence of ‘Rodger’s Nightfall’ (2013). He hopes you enjoy this unusual exhibition.