Photographer’s Subject Matter Sets Him Apart

Nearly a year before Sen. Jesse Helms set eyes on a Robert Mapplethorpe photo, Mark Matthews’ sexually explicit artwork was offending government officials in the city of Thousand Oaks.

Matthews tried to enter a photo called “Male Aggression” in the city’s annual photography show last year, but a nervous judging committee deemed the work too controversial to evaluate. Part of a three-part series on war, “Male Aggression” shows a battlefield of plastic army men and missiles on fire; in the background are several plastic bottles photographed to look like penises.

“It’s not sexual. It’s a political statement on war,” Matthews insisted. And, he says, it’s not explicit. “You have to really look at the image to see what’s in it.”

“That’s not really true,” said Thousand Oaks Arts Commissioner Sid O’Connell, who owns two Matthews photographs. “The images are clear. It’s a very strong piece that clearly touches nerves. In my opinion it’s a smaller, down-size version of the basic question that’s being dealt with on the national level. What is the role of public dollars in private art? Where do you draw the line?”

On the national level, Helms (R-N. C.) is leading a campaign to ban public money for obscene or “indecent” art. In Thousand Oaks, Matthews reacted angrily to the rejection of his contest entry.

Matthews said he was upset that the contest committee “thought the public wasn’t intelligent enough to look at the art and form their own opinions,” he said. “I wasn’t going to enter the contest this year.”

But he did. Matthews is, in fact, this year’s Best of Show winner. His work also took first and third places in the mixed-media/manipulated category, and is on display at the Conejo Valley Art Museum.

Although the winning photo “Quad I” is neither political nor sexual--it’s a shot of brightly painted walnut leaves, with the pattern repeated on four panels--Matthews’ other two entries in the show don’t shy away from controversy.

In “Ground Zero,” Matthews comments on Hiroshima. He built a set with five Styrofoam heads buried in sand and spray-painted them to look charred. Then he photographed the set. The negatives were flipped upside down and reversed to form four panels. A red circle appears in the middle of the image to evoke the Japanese flag.

“Extinction” is a similar four-paneled photo of a set populated by plastic dinosaurs and army men. “It deals with the idea of war,” Matthews said. “There’s the idea that we could become extinct like the dinosaurs. But there’s also the message that maybe war itself might become extinct.”

Subject matter isn’t the only thing that sets Matthews’ photos apart. More and more, he takes pictures of his own elaborate constructions of the world. “Like everyone else, I started by taking pictures of whatever looked neat,” Matthews said. “At first that meant shooting what was out in the world.”

But lately, neat subjects are objects that Matthews brings home. “Someone else might take a picture of a tree; I like picking the thing up, taking it home and playing with it.” (Although he’s never brought a tree home, he does have an impressive collection of leaves.)

“People look at my work and start wondering what’s real--it calls into question the whole idea of what’s in a photo.”

As Matthews’ sets become more complex, even he is beginning to question where the art lies. Could the sets themselves be art? If so, would that make the photos merely documents that record the art? “I don’t know,” Matthews said. “I’m beginning to wonder where my work is going.”

The city of Thousand Oaks Photography Show is on display through Oct . 22 at the Conejo Valley Art Museum, 191 W. Wilbur Road, Thousand Oaks. Hours are noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. Admission is free. Call (805) 373-0054 for information.