Matthew Arthur Williams: In Consideration of Our Times

Stills presents an exhibition of new photography by Matthew Arthur Williams.
Williams is a Glasgow-based artist who has become known for a visual arts practice that explores themes of race, queerness, memory and history. A key concern that he addresses in his work is the absence of representation and how this can be perpetuated by formal histories and archives.

For Williams, memory is something that has to be worked on constantly for hidden histories to be revealed, retold, celebrated and preserved. Often collaborating with others, Williams’ work typically incorporates photography, moving image and sound.

In his 2022 exhibition, Soon Come, at DCA, Dundee, he combined archive material with filmed documentary footage, interviews with family members and self-portraiture to explore the complex histories tied to people and place, particularly those of Jamaica and Stoke-on-Trent.

For the context of Stills, his exhibition features a new moving image work and a selection of colour and black and white self-portraits and landscapes which Williams describes as being, “in a state of constant loss”. The methodical, slower-paced process of analogue photography, using a darkroom to bring pictures to life from photographic negatives, is something that Williams values. All the photographic work on display has been produced in the publicly accessible photography darkrooms at Stills and at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow.



The film, Another Allegory (2025) is a 21 minute digitally transferred 16mm film that viscerally revisits sites of fractured queer archival information. Shot over a period of three years, the film takes in a number of pastoral locations in the UK, and follows violinist Blaize Henry in the pursuit of the right love symphony that was once lost. Through a number of performances and camera moments including a burgeoning thunderstorm that desires to break - the film is akin to a muscle or root that has been damaged or even severed.

Matthew Arthur Williams was born in London in 1989 and is a Glasgow-based artist, photographer and DJ. Often collaborating with others, Williams’ work typically incorporates photography, moving image and sound. In his 2022 exhibition, Soon Come, at DCA, Dundee, he combined archive material with filmed documentary footage, interviews with family members and self-portraiture to explore the complex histories tied to people and place, particularly those of Jamaica and Stoke-on-Trent. His work has recently been included in the exhibitions: Lives Less Ordinary, Two Temple Place, London (2025) Digging In Another Time, Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature, at the Hunterian, Glasgow (2024), Five By Five at Incubator, London (2024) and Pictures of Us at Gathering, London (2023). His solo exhibition, Soon Come was presented at Dundee Contemporary Arts (2022) and his work has been included in group exhibitions at Viborg Kunsthal, Denmark (2021); Edinburgh Art Festival (2021); Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh (2021); Schau Fenster, Berlin, Germany (2020); Taigh Chearsabhagh, North Uist (2020); Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow (2019); and Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2017). He completed a BA in Photography at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2012.

'At the top of the list for me when producing work that carries multiple themes or subject matters, my obsession with the power of image making and how we read an image comes first. My work is saying something very loudly to me, and I like to leave it up to the viewer if those things resonate for them. This show at Stills is no different and continues to take a moment to stop or move at a slower pace.' - Matthew Arthur Williams