William Matthews

"I Have A Love Of Things"
A Tribute to Pable Neruda

"I love all things...because - I don't know why, because...everything rests in the handle, the contour, the traces of fingers, of a remote hand lost in the most forgotten regions of the ordinary obscured"
Pablo Neruda, Oda a Las cosas (Ode to Things)

In a new direction inspired by the poetry of Pablo Neruda, noted set designer, educator and painter William Matthews has created a collection of furniture and objects - ranging from free-standing screens, chairs and tables to musical instruments - combining his perceptive evocative art with the celebration of the ordinary and extraordinary venerated by Neruda. The Gallery of Functional Art is pleased to be the first to exhibit the collection, opening March 15, 1997.

The elemental theme running through Matthews' work is transformation of the visual, the "real" inherent in an image, through illusion and metaphor. In a manner similar to the setting of a play or film within an environment for the purpose of dramatic structure or... like a piece of pure poetry, Mathews sets his objects firmly within the "ordinary obscured" of Neruda. First constructing out of wood, metal and/or other materials; then painting and collaging embedding or adhering found and outcast objects such as socks, plates, oranges, scissors, soap, spoons; and ultimately incorporating portions of Neruda's own clarifying verse, the artist has created functional objects beautiful in work - that of Neruda - and deed - that of Matthews. They become the settings of our life and experience.

Each piece is named after a particular verse of Neruda. A chair takes on the universality of man's existence to which Neruda alludes in his "Ode to the Chair". Items utilized in each object's design retain their own integrity while showcasing their relationship to each other and to we who contemplate and use them. Matthews extracts multiple meanings and history from the objects he creates and those he appends. His love of the object and his search for its relation to us is apparent in all that he shows us. His discovery of Neruda's similar vision elevates his work to truly poetic and aesthetic appreciation of the philosophy of form and function.