about

Esmé Matthews (b.2002) is an American contemporary artist whose practice explores collective processing of ecological anxiety through sculpture and image making. Her work represents and conveys ambient anxiety relating to climate crisis and global conflict. Using sculpture, Esmé expresses concern for earth systems and the influence of capitalism on resource exploitation, meanwhile her image making goes further into the collective questioning inherent to our social conditioning. Her sculptural work often concerns found objects, resituating them in post-apocalyptic, climate-doom narratives to reconsider their status as “common” objects.  

Concerned with the irreversible effects of capitalism on the natural world, Esmé’s work involves a critique of the Anthropocene as overly broad and suggests shifting blame away from the “human race”. Instead, Esmé points her focus at the unrestrained, developmentalist aspects of capitalism as the driving force for climate disaster. Her work uses apocalyptic imagery with question-based text to represent the persistent and ever-present questioning engrained in our minds today, both inherent to younger generations and as a symptom of the technology era. Ultimately, Esmé’s work aims to create an urgent yet grounded sense of concern for the present and future world, rooted in a rejection of modernization, and contrasted with a desire to return to the natural world.  

Further, Esmé is a member of et al. Collective, a London-based artist collective working to build open, equitable frameworks for exhibition making and collective support for emerging artists. Esmé is currently pursuing her Masters of Fine Art at the Chelsea College of Art (UAL) in London, UK.