I met Matthew in 1988. He was having a semester off from school. Adherence to the requirements of a degree granting institution was not something Matthew was interested in.

He was too interested in pushing the possibilities of living, music, art and ideas.  

He was entranced by everything and anything, excited to listen, talk, dance, think, read, share, create, do, laugh, live. Born annoying in the best possible way.

We had to make our own fun in the 80s and Matthew was very very good at that.

Matthew would try and turn the information sign on High Street upside down so that it would look like a giant exclamation mark. 

Matthew would listen to Gavin Bryars’s Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet again. And then again.

Matthew would lie down in fires when drunk.

Matthew would see if Mrs. Ali would give us credit to get cigarettes.

Matthew would dance the highland jig and sing Ave Maria for the Penrith Police whilst in cells. 

Matthew would wear skinny tartan pants.  

Matthew would spend an entire Salvation Army food grant on King Island cream, ground coffee and Coco Pops. 

Matthew would decide it best not to use the oven because a very large river rat was living in there yet the grill would remain fine for making toast.

Matthew would decide the Sex Pistols were too hot, needed to cool down so put their CD in the fridge. 

Matthew would have a copy of Toy Love’s Bride of Frankenstein 45 with The Amputee Song / Good Old Joe on the B side. 

Matthew would make a copy of Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel with Georgie for my birthday.

Matthew would sell drawings for bottles of scotch.

Matthew would buy a zither. 

Matthew would run from Connections into the police station whilst being chased by homophobes and followed by art students and ask for a light.

Matthew would be a grandmaster of aesthetic chess.

The last time I saw Matthew was in 1992 at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

He was wrapped in blankets, in a wheelchair, with a carer.

I hugged him hello.

He told me that he was dying. 

I hugged him hello again.

Not forgotten.

Daniel Mudie Cunningham forwarded on some beautiful photographs the wonderful Eric Riddler made of Matthew and of his work.  

These images of Matthew’s performance, blindfolded seated at an old typewriter, and of the shadow of the performance are such wonderful ageless images of performance. 

Undeniably an image of an artist in the act of making a performance and an image of the shadow of an artist in the act of making a performance.

Archaic avantgarde artefacts, art produced today and yet to be produced art.