Rene Matić (b. 1997, Peterborough) is an artist currently studying and working in London. Their work explores the immeasurable dimensions of Blackness through the lens of their own personal experiences as a queer, Black womxn living in the diaspora. In doing so, Matić aims to expose, combat and question the power relations that pervade the art world and society more widely. Matić’s current work predominantly explores the Skinhead movement, its founding as a multicultural marriage between West Indian and white working class culture and its subsequent co-option by far right white supremacists. They use this as a metaphor to examine their own experience of living in the Black British diaspora and also to excavate white jealousy, the continued legacy of colonialism and the fear of a Black planet - all things which find convergence within and upon their mixed race identity. Working across painting, sculpture, film, photography and textile, Matić’s work attempts to bring to light (or dark) the fated conflicts and contradictions that one encounters while navigating the world in a body like their own.
