Chinoy Mathew, known as MatNova, is a fine art, street and portrait photographer and mixed media artist based in India.His work explores mental health, existential struggle, love and loss, often through staged or manipulated photography that turns personal and shared experience into symbolic imagery.,,His pieces have been exhibited in Belgium, France and Bangalore, India.
Mural of a Muse began as a collaboration with a friend who was experiencing psychosis, made at a house party in Bangalore where purple light illuminated the wall she was sitting against. Mathew photographed her shadow and edited the image so that black birds appear to exit her hand, expressing her letting go of pain, in a work that carries a sense of being unfinished, echoing both life itself and the slow pace of struggling with mental health. Minted on Tezos, the work was exhibited on a wall in Ghent and at the Artcrush gallery in Brussels in July 2024, as part of a collaboration between Artcrush Gallery and Tezos showcasing art across Belgium.
phantom of my mind's design manipulates a photograph to express the experience of living with schizophrenia. Bars in the image evoke the sensation of being trapped, words embedded in a foreground shadow stand for the intrusive information a person with the condition focuses on, and a shadow behind the bars represents pervasive phobia and fear. The piece was exhibited at the Artverse Paris gallery in France as part of a curation by Obscuradao about unseen and lesser known experiences of the human condition.
