Blood for Oil

Part object, part artifact, Blood for Oil is an instantly recognisable work from the oeuvre of Matthew Monahan. Set on a plinth, and housed within three glass vitrine-like cases are a variety of his barbaric assemblages, reminiscent of hand-crafted relics. Distorted almost to the point of abstraction and bulky, their purpose is secondary to their materiality that points to the process of their making. Resolutely and physically worked, Monahan is the divine creator, offering viewers a dark mysticism in his parallel world where he conjures up images of nightmarish fantasy. Set in glass cases, the works have a certain aura, existing as relics in a world of archaic spirituality. Crowned by a veiled and severed head, referencing the tortured Christ and the crown of thorns, Blood and Oil demands our reverence. This idea of torment is further emphasised by the contorted and twisted forms that are pierced by various objects.

Whilst this brutality is central to the appreciation of the sculpture, one cannot help but appreciate that they display a certain elegance and dramatic grandeur. Drawn from a wide range of influences, from Modernist art to ancient totems, Blood for Oil is both familiar and strange, transcending logical expectations. As with all Monahan's sculptural works, it 'speaks of long days spent in the studio pulling and pushing materials into new forms and combinations, consumed in traditional sculptural concerns about volume and weightlessness, surface and substrate, and giving life to inanimate substance.' (J. Griffin, "Mathew Monahan" in Frieze Magazine, Issue 110, October 2007).