The 'Cats and Rats' series, serves as a visceral introduction to what promises to be a series of psychological explorations. The series possesses a medium scale that invites close inspection of its turbulent surface. The initial encounter is one of raw, neo-expressionist energy. The feline subject is not merely painted but seems to have been clawed out of the oil medium. It occupies a space between the domestic and the feral, immediately distancing itself from traditional animal portraiture through its aggressive application of pigment and its haunting, almost human-like gaze. The mood is one of profound unease and nocturnal tension. The dominant palette of raw colour creates an atmosphere that feels both subterranean and spectral. There is a palpable sense of anxiety within the figures, conveyed through the frantic, gestural brushstrokes and the drips that suggest a state of physical or ontological melting. The viewer is not looking at a cat, or rather a series of cats, but rather at the feeling of being watched by something that exists in the shadows of the psyche. The series functions as a bridge between the alleyway and the gallery, demanding that the viewer reconcile the speed of graffiti with the permanence of a portrait.

Within a contemporary critical framework, this series functions as an exploration of the abject. By distorting the familiar form of a common household animal, the artist strips away the comfort of domestication. The piece participates in a long tradition of using animals as avatars for human trauma or instinctual drives. It establishes a primal hierarchy. The title suggests a coming conflict or a symbiotic dance of predator and prey, yet the cat appears more like a haunted witness than a triumphant hunter. The most intriguing symbolic intervention is the sequence of circular forms above the cat. These geometric interruptions provide a stark contrast to the organic chaos below. They function as a crown, a digital artifact, or perhaps a rhythmic measurement of time. They suggest an external order or an imposed logic that the central figure cannot fully integrate. The vertical white and lime streaks bisecting the face acts as a metaphorical fracture, indicating a split identity or a sudden flash of insight that threatens to dissolve the subject entirely. The core of this series lies in the dialectic between the readymade and the rendered. Matthews utilises the instruments of the builder as stencils, a move that subverts the traditional brushstroke and replaces it with the ghost of an industrial object. This is a critical engagement with the legacy of the Duchampian readymade, filtered through a contemporary street lens. By elevating these low art techniques to the status of a gallery canvas, the artist challenges the class-based distinctions that separate high culture from the subcultures of the metropolis. It is a democratisation of the toolset, where the hardware store provides the vocabulary for high art. There is a complex layering of time evident in the physical construction of the paintings. We see the immediate, urgent time of the mark-making—the fast swipes of the palette knife and the wet-on-wet blending. Beneath this lies a slower, more ruminative time suggested by the heavy impasto and the built-up textures. The drips provide a sense of ongoing movement, as if the paintings are in a state of becoming or decaying. 

The  'Cats and Rats' series is a powerful exercise in textural depth and emotional honesty. The artist demonstrates a sophisticated command of oil as a medium that can communicate weight and atmosphere simultaneously. While the composition is centred and relatively traditional, the internal volatility of the brushwork prevents it from feeling static. The tension between the structured blue dots and the entropic green mass is the work's greatest formal success, providing a necessary point of friction that elevates the piece from a mere character study to a compelling piece of contemporary expressionism. Matthews successfully navigates the tension between the raw and the refined. The technical execution of the stenciling creates a sophisticated depth that belies the simplicity of the materials. The work avoids the trap of being merely decorative by maintaining a jagged, uncomfortable edge. 

"A haunting dissolution of form that reveals the feral heart of the familiar." TimelineArtCritic 1/27/2026