La’ Division artist and documentor Matthew Bourne is about to launch a unique show at Ambush Gallery in Sydney. The show is called Streets X Portraiture and it takes a different approach to an average portrait exhibition. He has turned the brush back on the artists and has chosen to paint portraits of a range of contemporary Australian street artists. Mat has also worked along side Cata Trechswjakow (founder of Cata Films) to create an insight to the artists he has painted by producing a series of intrviews with each subject.

I was intrigued as to how he came up with his unique concept so I caught up with him to find out more about the show. Matt firstly explained the concept and then the process he went through selecting artists to become the subjects. “The show started by wanting to rekindle my love for portraiture which I haven't done in years, doing something completely original and then creating a unique group of artists to paint. So I went to work writing a list of all the artists I loved, especially those I felt would be great life subjects. As my list of artists grew I noticed a common thread appear time and time again. My love for street art and graffiti was finding a voice and needed to be heard. Every single person on that list are either a street or graffiti artist. So that was that, combining the two aspects would be a great way to showcase my passion for portraiture, street art and graffiti. Thats when I got super pumped and my brain overloaded. Then its snow balled into something a lot bigger.”

Matt selected a varied group of amazing artists like Mike Watt, Cherrie Buttons, Sid Tapia, Mikey Freedom and James Jirat just to name a few. I noticed that every artist had their own unique style and I was wondering wether that was intentional or totally coincidental. “First and foremost the artists I chose came down to the person, character, and then style. But range of styles for each person played in the back of my mind. It was going to be a large factor in pushing my ideas for the show.”

As I mentioned before there is an element of documentation through a series of interviews created in the artists studios and work spaces. Matt and Cata travelled a lot for this show, immersing themselves in the artists creative spaces and finding out more about their artistic process.” Foremost it's all about the Portraits and the artists, but I have been fortunate enough to get the artists involved with a few things that will create a journey for the viewer when at the exhibition.One aspect really important to me was creating an emotional connection with the viewer. So what better way to do that then interviewing the artists.So I teamed up with Cata Trechswjakow founder of @catafilms to help with filming and editing.

Why, two things, it provided me with a great source of inspiration when I came back home to the studio. I would spend hours listening to the audio files processing the information, scribbling down notes, and ideas before starting on their portraits. It was an important process from beginning to end.

Second, that connection with the viewer. What better way then being able to listen to an artists point of view about life, art, street art and art process. It's something quite special and usually unattainable to the general public. It also creates a personal attachment to each portrait, theres real people behind the face, and here they are, if that makes sense.”