Michael Matthews: Follow, 2024, South Africa. Acrylic, collage on paper, 3 x (9 x A3)

Michael Matthews's Follow presents as a formidable wall of modular repetition. The work consists of twenty-seven A3 sheets arranged in a precise grid, creating a rhythmic visual pulse that dominates the viewer's field of vision. Created in 2024 in South Africa, the work arrives at a significant historical juncture: three decades after the birth of the nation's democracy. In a landscape often characterised by political volatility and the search for collective direction, the title Follow carries a heavy, almost ominous weight. The initial impact is one of industrial or bureaucratic uniformity, softened only by the raw, tactile nature of the mixed media application.

There is a palpable sense of exhaustion within the repetition. While the grid suggests order, the individual panels are messy and frantic. The heavy use of white to partially obscure collaged backgrounds creates an atmosphere of ‘white-washing’ or erasure. The mood is not one of progress, despite the implied movement of the figures, but rather one of a circular, repetitive stasis. It evokes the feeling of being caught in a loop, a sentiment that resonates deeply with contemporary South African anxieties regarding systemic inertia and the repetitive nature of political cycles.

Conceptually, the work functions as a critique of conformity and the mechanics of mass movement. By repeating a single, stylised figure across twenty-seven panels with only minor variations in the background texture, Matthews interrogates the loss of individuality within a ‘following.’ The work sits comfortably within the tradition of chronophotography, yet it subverts the scientific clarity of Eadweard Muybridge by introducing the ‘noise’ of collage and gestural painting. However, a critical tension exists here: the work risks becoming the very thing it critiques. The aesthetic is so consistent and the variation so subtle that the viewer may find the experience more decorative than provocative if they do not engage with the underlying materiality of the collage.

The central figure is the primary symbol: a thick, black, calligraphic outline of a person with a raised arm. This gesture is ambiguous. It could be a salute, a signal of distress, or the rhythmic motion of manual labour, such as hammering. This ambiguity allows the figure to stand in for the ‘everyman’ of the South African workforce or the ‘follower’ of a political movement. The collage elements, though largely buried, represent the "debris" of information and history that forms the foundation of the contemporary subject. The act of painting over this information serves as a metaphor for how official narratives often overwrite complex social realities.

The work operates on multiple temporal planes. There is the immediate ‘now’ of the 2024 South African context, the ‘mechanical time’ of the grid which mimics film strips or digital feeds, and the ‘historical time’ buried in the collage layers. The repetition suggests a timeline where nothing happens; the figure in the first panel is virtually identical to the figure in the last. This creates a sense of ‘frozen time,’ suggesting that despite the appearance of activity, the societal structure remains unchanged.

The strength of Follow lies in its sheer physical persistence. The commitment to the grid and the manual labour involved in treating each of the twenty-seven sheets as a unique yet repetitive site of struggle is what elevates the work. It captures the ‘labour of being’ in a way that a single large canvas could not. The subtle shifts in the white paint: its opacity, its drips, and the way it fights for dominance over the black outlines: provide a necessary human element to an otherwise rigid structure. It is a powerful visualisation of the friction between the individual impulse and the collective mould.

“The rhythm of the masses is often just the echo of a single, tired step.”