Observer Design’s fashion story was shot in artist Matt Small’s studio. Or as he calls it, “the HQ of where it all happens”. It’s a place for experimentation and to evolve ideas, paint splatters and all. Music keeps him focused, from hip-hop to funk to “anything that flows”.
“I want to get that sense of a jazz musician in my work,” he says. Small makes art about where he is from – north London, Camden to be specific. “There are a lot of stories that don’t get told because people aren’t deemed worthy. My work is about shining a light on them,” he says.
Born in 1975, Small graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2000. He uses found objects and junk materials to create striking depictions of mostly young, black faces, many from anonymous photos he’s taken. “All of these scrap bits of metal and wood, I bring to the studio and make a portrait on the discarded items.”
Small has shown at the Saatchi gallery and Black Rat Projects. In Oregon he created a mosaic of the athlete Jesse Owens from scrap metal for the 2021 World Athletics Championships. He’s working on a similar public piece of Jamal Edwards for the entrepreneur’s London neighbourhood of Acton.
In his college days, Small was inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose paintings doubled as social commentary on race and class. “Any creative following their own path is an inspiration, from dance to film.”
Small has a wife and two children. “I get in early, 8 o’clock,” he says. “I don’t get long here because I have to get back to the family, so I hit it hard and I’m out by 3pm.”
He has lived in the same house since he was five; he’s deeply rooted in his neighbourhood. His work celebrates what others may deem insignificant. “I like seeing the potential in something,” he says.
