Alex Scott - The Matchbox Collections

Emerging Auckland artist Alex Scott has turned 500 functioning Beehive matchboxes into striking works of art in her debut exhibition, The Matchbox Collections.

The hand-painted matchboxes feature 50 different collections on subjects as diverse as political assassinations, child stars and miniature replicas of famous artworks by Monet, Cezanne, Warhol and Picasso. Alex spent three years from 2007, and more than 1500 hours, creating the tiny and amazingly detailed works - each one takes anywhere from two to five hours to complete.

Inspired by the funny, the familiar and the absurd, Alex gathered images from various media, artists and moments in time, arranging them into themed sets of 10. She describes her motivation as an attempt to shrink elements of popular culture, art and history down to a more manageable size. Why matchboxes? Alex obtains her ‘canvases’ from supermarkets and other outlets rather than art shops, preferring a canvas that might otherwise be used without much thought and then discarded. Each matchbox still holds its original contents of 40 to 50 red-tipped matches and the strike pads remain intact.

Alex says the project has been “an exercise in devotion”. At one point she quit her day job as a magazine sub-editor to devote every day to the miniature oil paintings. On undertaking such a mammoth task, Alex says she’s motivated by people’s reactions to the paintings. “Everyone is drawn to something different and there’s this instant intimate relationship created between them and the work”. Plus, she says, “I have a burning desire to paint”.

Her exhibition runs from November 24 to December 6.