Carmen Mattear is a Canadian artist currently based in Scotland
( BIO )
Her practice is rooted in nostalgia, each piece emerges from a place of longing and gratitude. Mattear holds a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Art from the University of Guelph with a minor in Psychology.
( STATEMENT )
Her body of work acts as a warm obituary; using past experiences to find a positive humanism in the everyday. She investigates the intersections of nostalgia, childhood, clothing, film, photography, personal artifacts and colour with an emphasis on the old: vintage clothing, candid photographs of another time, home videos and old technicolour film. They are items that have lived, carried stories, and now linger with new potential. Mattear explores what it means to be surrounded by the past and the secondhand—and how these remnants can be transformed into new visual narratives. Her palette is consistently bright, housing a vibrant remembering and rarely a faded one.
The scottish STUDIO
By the end of 2024 ‘the studio’ became more of a nomadic term. I went from working in the sunroom of my downtown Guelph flat to working in a spacious 1930s farmhouse in rural Ontario to hauling it across the pond to work in a farmhouse older than the country of Canada. Then to a slightly newer cedar cottage on the Loch, and then again to an old sandstone building in Edinburgh.
STRACHURMORE FARM
A notable studio was Strachurmore Farm. I painted in the village of Strachur for 8 months, spending 92 hours a week in the company of sheep, cows and a couple roommates consisting of spiders, rats and bats. My dad was born in Scotland, and ever since my family visited in 2022 I’ve had a powerful pull here. I fell in love with the ocean, the wet wool smell and the age of its buildings. But the romance of an old house quickly came crashing down to practicality in mid February, living without central heating and single glazed windows…
STOKING THE FIRE
My whole creative practice, the studio, centered around heat. I simply could not paint with purple hands and damp bones. There was a fast and urgent learning curve; dry wood vs. wet wood, soft wood vs. hard wood, how to use an axe, how to make kindling, different methods of stacking a fire, the open fireplace vs. the stove. I’ve never lived with a fire as the sole source of warmth. But my creative force had never been so simple before: roaring fire = work, fire dies = no work.
In my Edinburgh flat I am still working alongside a fireplace, albeit, a gas one. I am looking for a studio with heat, hopefully then the painting can happen whenever I want it to.
CV
Education
2022 | Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree with Distinction | Major in Studio Art, and Minor in Psychology | University of Guelph
Professional Experience
2021- Present | Designer, Editor, Content Creator | J. Lorito Publishing | ON
2022 - Present | Artist, Filmmaker, Curator | Collective Year Off Productions | ON
2023 | An Obituary: Artist Talk | Ed Video Media Arts Centre | Guelph ON
2023 | Guest Instructor | The Raise-an-Artist Project | Halton Hills ON
Residencies
2023 | Hard and Soft: Ed Video Artist in Residence | Ed Video Media Arts Centre | Guelph ON
Solo Exhibitions
Upcoming 2026 | … | N/A Gallery | Guelph ON
Upcoming 2026 | “I was here” | 10C Main Floor Gallery | Guelph ON
2023 | An Obituary | Ed Video Media Arts Centre | Guelph ON
2021 | The Domestic Interior | Zavitz Gallery | Guelph ON
2021 | The Last Sound | The Project Space, University of Guelph
Group Exhibitions
2025 | J. Lorito + Collective Year Off | Red Brick | Guelph ON
2024 | Collective Year Off | Rural Commons Gallery | Erin ON
2024 | Change | Juried Exhibition by Guelph Arts Council | artBar | Guelph ON
2022 | Threshold | Boarding House Gallery | Guelph ON
2022 | Open Studios | School of Fine Art and Music | University of Guelph
2022 | 54th Annual Juried Art Show | University of Guelph
2021 | Art in the Bullring | Guelph ON
2021 | Manifold | Zavitiz Gallery | Guelph ON
2021 | Face the Perspective | Zavitz Gallery | Guelph ON
2021 | Top 10 | Juried Art Show | Zavitz Gallery | Guelph, ON
2021 | Virtual Juried Art Show | University of Guelph
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