b. 1966, UK; lives and works in London
1989 Goldsmith’s College, University of London, BFA
Mat Collishaw is a key figure in the generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmiths College in the late 1980s. He participated in the influential exhibition Freeze (1988), where he presented his acclaimed work Bullet Hole, which, like much of his work, plays with the beautiful, the repellent and the morbid all at once. In 2017, Collishaw’s two London shows reflected a new direction in his work, his first virtual reality artwork Thresholds, at Somerset House, The Centrifugal Soul, a haunting zoetrope and projection piece inspired by the Victorian theatrical illusion, Pepper’s Ghost.
Collishaw has exhibited internationally since his first solo show in 1990. Solo exhibitions include Black Mirror, Galleria Borghese, Rome (2014); This Is Not An Exit, Blain|Southern, London (2013); Bass Museum of Art, Florida (2013); Pino Pascali Museum Foundation, Bari (2013); and Magic Lantern at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2010). Collishaw’s work is in the collections of Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania and the Tate Galleries, London.