Mat Maitland Believes In Accidents

How did you decide that you wanted to compile your collage work into a book?

I have always had people asking, “Why don't you do a book? Why don't you do an exhibition?” But I had never quite wanted to do it. I didn’t want to self-publish a book because that felt like a bit of a vanity project. Also, because my work is quite broad, and I’m known for a lot of different things, it was hard to work out how to approach a book; what to include, the kind of work to focus on. 

In the end I realised that I liked the idea of creating a book of the fashion work. By its nature, when you're doing editorials for magazines the work gets so split up across time and different publications that you never really see it together. I liked the idea of putting it all into one book so that you can see a body of work which you would never normally see. Editorial work can also be quite transient, and I felt that a book gave the work more permanence. 

How did you approach what to include in the final book?

It was hard to decide what to put in. Initially I liked the idea of it being quite completionist, so when Jurgen [Maelfeyt] (who runs Art Paper Editions) was putting together the layout, I gave him pretty much everything that I had done, which was around 120 collages. The first time that we reviewed the layout he had used most of it – every page was a full bleed collage, and it just gave me a bit of a headache, there was too much going on. I think because my work is quite layered and dense, that it needs breathing space in a book format. Then in terms of what work to select, when you are doing fashion work you’re not really thinking, ‘One day I’ll make a book of this,’ so there will naturally be work that you don’t like or value as much as other work. 

How did you choose what to leave out?

For, say, V Magazine, I've done a lot of work for them over time, and it was always quite similar, so it didn’t feel worthwhile to put more than two or three pieces in. That was an easy way of editing, because there was a logical reason. Or in some cases I just didn't really like the work anymore, or I didn't want it to live in a book forever. 

Most of the time, even 90% of the time, all the fashion work that I do is very free. It's not that heavily prescribed by the magazines, and they tend to just let me do what I wish. However, sometimes I might be approached for an editorial where I have to depict or illustrate an article, or a piece of writing that's been done for the magazine. That can be great, but it can also be really, really difficult, because it can become quite suffocating in terms of what you're actually depicting in the illustration. 

Was there a favorite image or collage that you had when you revisited all this work?

The work that I did with Mario Sorrenti I think is really strong, and working with him was a great experience. More broadly, when you're doing editorial work it's also not just about your work, it can be about the magazine that you did it for. I did some images for Interview Magazine, and I had always been a massive fan of the magazine, so that felt very big. I love those images because they're also for Interview, and it's all wrapped up in loving the magazine, loving the work, and it all aligning. 

You started your career by creating music campaigns, but transitioned towards working as a visual artist in the fashion realm. What drew you to fashion? And how does it differ from producing images for music? 

My work in music is often in a creative direction or design capacity, even though I do, of course, create imagery too. I’ve always been enthralled by fashion imagery and was interested in how my image making could fit into this world, especially when my creative process lives in a different space to the usual structures that exist; for instance the fact that I am not a photographer. Fashion allowed me to break free from only working in music and pursue a different creative path in tandem. The process of producing something is a little different, in the sense that in fashion I am working as an artist and image maker who frames a visual world around a collection theme or product using my specific style. Whereas in music you are visually interpreting the music and kind of designing the product itself, and stylistically this can go in any direction.  

Why did you start making collages in the first place? What do you think drew you to collage as a medium?

It goes back to when I was at art school. I always did collages, and I think from the start I felt that collage was a very democratic way of creating images. You don’t necessarily have to be a skilled photographer or a skilled illustrator to make collages, but with the right eye and taste you can create something special out of existing things. Collage is almost open to anyone, in a way. 

The catalyst for rekindling my interest in collage was when I did the cover for Goldfrapp’s Black Cherry album in 2003. Alison [Goldfrapp] wanted to use collage, and the style for that album was intentionally quite crude and loose. It's not the crafted and refined approach that my collage work has ended up having, but it was my reintroduction. 

What’s also interesting, is that when I was doing album covers in the late nineties, you had to use photo libraries. You would have a catalogue, look through it, find a picture you wanted, and then you'd phone them up and say, “Can I use this image?” Then you'd have to negotiate a fee, and it would probably be something like £900. It wasn't really workable in terms of me doing collages, because my process is all about happenstance and the surprises that happen along the way. Then in the early millennium new stock libraries emerged, like Shutterstock, which were subscription based.  You could subscribe to them, and then you could just download high res images straight away, without having to clear anything at that stage. That really opened up a massive space for me to do collages, by having all of this imagery at my fingertips. 

I'm interested in the extent to which your work and practice are in relation to existing things. That’s both in the sense of, say, making an album cover or editorial work for a magazine, where you are in some way responding to music or text, and in that fact that you assemble collages out of images which already exist. 

I would agree. I hadn't really thought about it before, but certainly, with music for instance, you are always reacting to, or trying to amplify something in, the music. I always feel that an album cover has to both be somehow reflective of what the music is, and be memorable. So you are reacting to something that exists, but in a way, is anyone ever doing anything in a bubble? I think [as a creative] you're always kind of reacting to something, even if it's a more abstract thing. 

Another thing about collage is that I've got no one else to answer to, I'm not even working in a team, really. If you’re a photographer, say, ultimately it's your vision, but you're still collaborating with a team. Whereas with collage, I am literally just sitting by myself doing it, making every decision. I find that fascinating, the decisions you make in producing an artwork. Things like, what is it that makes you think something's finished? There’s almost an art to that, knowing when to stop.

How do you know when a collage that you’re working on is finished? 

You can’t explain it. All I know is that collage is so intuitive. When I create a collage I’m working back to front; I don't work the way a lot of creatives work, where you ideate something, come up with mood boards, plan out the whole thing. I go into it not knowing what I'm going to get out of it. I might have been influenced by a painting or a scene from a film, but ultimately I’m being led by what I find, what interests me, how images go together and what might be sparked through that process. It’s all about that journey. It’s all about accidents.