Sally Matthews

I keep coming across amazing animal sculptures! These ones are made out of felt, steel and cow muck!

Drowning Boys (oils on paper)

When I was a nipper we used to go on trips with the local play group to Scarborough. I remember the sea wall appearing absolutely massive. A couple of shirtless youths hopped over the wall straight into the choppy swell below and all I glimpsed of them after that was their huge panicky eyes and unusually vibrant hair! I'm not sure what happened to those boys, maybe the great whites got them..

Boy On Horse by Theodor Kittelsen (here's a closer look..)

Boy On White Horse by Theodor Kittelsen

I found this beautiful painting whilst searching for stories about Kelpies (Celtic urban myth about a water horse)

i love how the horse is bordering on cartoonish illustration and the surrounding pond is beautifully washed out and dreamlike.

The Eenucorn. Upcycled painting

I really hope this wasn't a collectable before I painted over it with the rolling hills of Eenucorn wood.

Originally this was a painting of a stream meandering gently through a forest! I got it from a charity shop and then painted over it thinly, layer by layer with oils.

I loved how it already came with a back story and an identity and then I wrote my narrative over it.

It was like doing a secret collaboration (and a very cheap one at that!)

Jin Young Yu glass sculptures

These eerie glass sculptures have really struck a chord with me. They are by a Korean artist and have that weird cutesy-ness that the far east is recognised for, but that's not what you immediately think when you see these sculptures. The cuteness is buried under a shed load of uneasiness and melancholy.

I'm kinda scared that one of these little ghostly girlys might haunt my sleep tonight but I would still love to have one sitting on my mantle piece!

i'm not usually mega interested in figurative sculpture but these drift wood horses have enchanted me and made my heart swell!! They are by Heather Jansch and just lovely.

When i was younger we used to live in a house next to a sheer drop into a bit of farm land..

from one side the wall hiding the drop was about 4ft high.. A robber came one night and robbed our neighbour, jumped the wall to make his escape and landed about 30ft later with his legs all brok!!

if you look closely you can see the bones cracking..

Two Green Ears. Blown glass installation

if you're an 80's child like me, you may remember a series of books called Puddle Lane.. the most unnerving thing about these tales was the two green ears of The Griffle appearing on their own in mid air..

If you ever get chance, read the books back, they rekindle that feeling of uneasiness and suspense, as soon as you plant your eyes on the Puddle Lane street sign and the two green ears of that long, green, predatory, 7 foot tall griffle hanging eerily in a poof of smoke, you'll know what i mean!

I got the ears made by a lovely bloke who specializes in blown glass, his name is Bruce Marks and he's based in London. He did a perfect job and at a very reasonable price!

I thought it would be cool to have these ears suspended about 7ft from the floor in a corner so that it seemed the Griffle was secretly spying on everyone from a mucky little corner!

This is a portrait of my stepdad..

He is a big unsociable man, my mum and I often make up little stories about him.

This one illustrates the fabricated tale about him having a big blue hat with a bell on it that he never takes of and wears with pride and quiet adoration..

There's another about him having to take a jug of gravy with him whenever he goes out in the car but no illustration of this one yet.

Watch this space!

Here's the original 'Beast o' Bottney' another painting of mine and another favourite.

My brother came home from a walk with his friends once and claimed he had seen a big cat round the local reservoir. He had also been about 21 and making dens with a few other lads of a similar age so i was a bit reluctant to believe him.

my little crappy shino hole of a village is a major influence in my work, 'cause it's there that i hear the most extraordinary tales give me ammo for my paintings.

it's the stories you hear an ever so long way down the grapevine, and i really hope they're not true..

recently i heard one of the local girls has got an ovary up her arse...

looked a lot at Peter Doig and am still in love with his work, it's the kind of imagery that hits you and rattles around in your chest for a while before settling there forever. As i once read somewhere about Doig; "he paints white as though it has every colour in it"

Here's one of the paintings i did in the final year of my degree that i'm still a bit emotionally attached to! guess that's a good way to start a blog??

i love the awkward colours and the massive scale of this one (if i do say so myself) :)