MATTHEW COLE: CABIN FEVER

Matthew Cole’s first exhibition at BEERS London, Cabin Fever, sees the American artist translating the external world into uncanny, psychologically charged paintings of interior spaces.

Following an invitation to an artist residency in Canada, Cole (born in New Jersey and now based in New York) traveled to Newfoundland (Pouch Cove) to upend his practice. What he hadn’t anticipated was how the natural world would turn inward upon his return to the studio. His venture along the rugged North Atlantic coastline is reinterpreted through narrative-driven compositions that prioritize domestic and interior spaces. Perhaps this shift reflects a deeper yearning: an insistence on the inevitable, and a pull toward spaces just beyond reach.

Cole draws on Atlantic Canada’s rich cultural traditions of song and storytelling. The resulting works are quietly psychologically charged. Motifs suggesting something deeply personal for the artist, while retaining a sort of uncanny familiarity. BEERS Director Kurt Beers – who hails from the nearby province of New Brunswick – notes, “Matthew’s pieces are profoundly transportive; they retain a quiet power that draws us in through texture, mood, and place, while evoking nostalgia with sensitivity and authenticity.”

Originally seeking a break from the rhythms of his New York studio, Cole found in Canada a landscape dense with history and historicity (ie, narrative and story). Back in the studio, he began experimenting with new materials and different approaches to landscape, tackling the broadest possible notion of that word. Influenced by Mamma Andersson, Peter Doig, and Neo Rauch, he surprised himself as the seascapes he envisioned evolved into tightly constructed interiors: rooms, objects, and occasional figures take centre stage; windows frame and contain the landscape within architectural space; drapes conceal and reveal. These works also engage questions of craft, art history, and process. Their ambiguity evokes multiple sensibilities - at times suggestive of Moroccan casbah, Eastern European folklore, or someplace indeterminate, imaginary, or hybridized.

For Cole, each painting functions as a chapter within an ongoing autobiographical narrative. As he notes, “Each painting is its own journey… I may begin with a faint idea, but the result often diverges entirely.”

Cole’s technique is both suggestive and applied. His interiors suggest places both certain and ephemeral: fleeting memory, lost moments, and a lingering attachment to time, place, and feeling.

We invite you to join us for Cole’s opening and inaugural exhibition with BEERS London on Thursday, 28 May (6–8pm) at our Little Britain location.