Matthew Bamber: Dream Home

Matthew Bamber explores themes of memory and trauma, greed and power, queerness, and identity in his work. Bamber operates within the framework of our image-saturated world, manipulating already altered images to pose new questions about ways of looking. The exhibition showcases two distinct bodies of work, namely Dream Home and GM Series, spanning across the two floors. 

Dream Home brings together a collection of works around the idea of ‘queer domesticity’ creating snapshots of the artist’s home as a site for identity construction. These artworks detail sentimental objects, everyday utensils, bric-a-brac, and pieces made by Bamber, selected from an intimate archive of material objects built up over a lifetime. Each piece focuses on a different area within the household, such as the bathroom, the most private space in Bamber’s home. 

With the addition of three new pieces, the GM series explores various themes related to the LGBTQIA+ community and its broad recent history. Drawing inspiration from his personal memories, extensive research into queer theories, and sociological studies. Bamber’s approach to making this work involved an interest in understanding and processing this overwhelming wealth of information. Each artwork within the series revolves around themes like shame, ‘outness’, family values, and surveillance, for which Bamber collected related imagery.

Image Credit: Matthew Bamber, Dream Home (Sleep), 2023

Castlefield Gallery at 40

Next year, Castlefield Gallery will celebrate its 40th anniversary and is looking to its past in order to think about the present, and what the future might hold, writes Matthew Pendergast, its Curator and Deputy Director.

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