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Matthew Blackburn Paints Childhood Relics as Modern Vanitas

Acrylic still lifes that mash up Dutch vanitas with PS1 controllers and Froot Loops.

Matthew Blackburn Paints Childhood Relics as Modern Vanitas

Acrylic still lifes that mash up Dutch vanitas with PS1 controllers and Froot Loops.

Huseyin Emanet

Huseyin Emanet

Founder of DzinerHub

Matthew Blackburn Paints Childhood Relics as Modern Vanitas

Art

Matthew Blackburn's acrylic paintings frame PlayStation controllers, Rubik's cubes, and cereal bowls with the gravity of 17th-century still life. The fictional bedrooms he constructs are warped like CRT screens, pulling the viewer into a first-person memory. Gold frames heighten the tension between kitsch objects and classical composition, making nostalgia feel tangible and slightly uneasy.

Blackburn treats the old master tradition as a living language, swapping skulls for consumer objects to address addiction and transience. The precise color matching—like Froot Loops echoing the PlayStation buttons—shows a painter deeply in control of his palette. It's a smart, visually rich bridge between art history and the textures of a 2000s childhood.