Matt Sheridan's latest large scale painting-in-motion video projection, titled Noodles For Tony / Curry for Chas, is currently viewable at TWFINEART's satellite space TWFAx2 under the W Hotel Brisbane at 300 George Street.

Noodles For Tony (three-field, one minute loop, 2018) references world traveler Anthony Bourdain's favourite comfort food. Using a black and white palette organized in a mesmerizingly conflicted rhythm of shapes and marks, Sheridan's work also references the work of directors Akira Kurosawa (diagonal blocking serving social intersectionality), Yasujiro Ozu (dynamic range of emotional conflict) and Martin Scorsese (Catholic violence), all favourite cinematic influences shared by New Yorkers Sheridan and Bourdain.  Noodles For Tony is Sheridan's site-reactive attempt to understand the mindset of a man missed projected into the W Hotel, a place of travel.

Over the next weeks, Noodles for Tony will transition into an expanded-length, full colour work titled Curry for Chas.  Building upon the constructivist expressionism of Noodles, Curry for Chas will suspend Japanese-inflected marks into a saturated colour palette referencing signage found in the southern Indian state of Kerala, where expatriate Sheridan traveled with his father Chas in 2009. Chas, not a fan of curry, was on a Quixotic quest to find a hamburger while in India; in retaliation, Sheridan threatened a breakfast of sushi and beer during an expected 16 hour layover in Japan thwarted by Chas' airline's last-minute schedule change.  Curry for Chas explores power dynamics of that conversation using the abstract visual language of painting-in-motion.

Sheridan's summer of 2018 was bookended by the passing of Bourdain in June and Chas in September, which interrupted Sheridan's production of the work for the W Hotel.  Sheridan's latest works aim to make something beautiful from conflicted feelings of loss and memory in a travel context dear to all three men involved in the work.

Written by Tove Langridge