Artist : Mat Chivers
Title : Where Do I End and You Begin (Bilateral Gynandromorph)
Medium : pencil on paper
Dimensions : 76 x 56 cm


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Referencing that all life on Earth, including our own is carbon-based, ‘Carbon Mirror’ is one of a series of paired drawings made using this primary element. The left hand has been used to make a drawing of the right hand and the right to draw the left. The eye observes, sending a signal to the brain and down through the body into the hand which makes marks on the paper in an attempt to describe what the eye sees - setting up a continual loop between the interior and the exterior. Physical engagement with material reality is an act of extended cognition - of thinking out into the world. The idea of extended cognition centres around the way thinking is something that happens in relationship with material reality - a network of processes that radiate back and forth from the wetware of the brain through the physiology of the sensorial body and into the world of animate and inanimate form in a complex web of reciprocity. The evolution of our hands has facilitated an evolution of our minds. The hand enables the mind to manifest on the three-dimensional plane and has led us to where we are now.

The work of British artist Mat Chivers looks at some of the fundamental phenomena that drive our thoughts and actions. He explores ideas relating to perception, evolutionary process, ecology and ethics by bringing traditional analogue approaches to making into counterpoint with state of the art digital technologies. Chivers has works in numerous private and public collections including Oxford University Mathematical Institute, UK and Fondazione Henraux, Italy. Solo exhibitions include ‘Migrations’ at Arsenal Art Contemporain Montréal, Canada and Musée d’art de Joliette, Canada; ‘Harmonic Distortion’ at PM/AM, London, UK, ‘Altered State’s at Hallmark House, Johannesburg, South Africa and ‘Syzygy’ at Anima Mundi. Group exhibitions include The New States of Being at Centre d’Exposition de l’Université de Montréal, Canada; A Place In Time at Nirox, Johannesburg, South Africa; Glasstress: White Light/White Heat at Pallazzo Cavalli Franchetti for the 55th Venice Biennale, Italy and The Knowledge at The Gervasuti Foundation for the 54th Venice Biennale, Italy.