06/05/2026
“𝕿𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝖆𝖗𝖊 𝖓𝖔 𝖌𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖙 𝖒𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖘 𝖑𝖊𝖋𝖙. 𝕿𝖍𝖆𝖙’𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖑 𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖑 𝖔𝖋 𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖙𝖎𝖒𝖊. 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖙’𝖘 𝖕𝖆𝖙𝖍 𝖎𝖘 𝖈𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖉 𝖎𝖓 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖉𝖔𝖜.”
— Domenico, Nostalgia (Tarkovsky, 1983)
‘No Great Masters’ was the first work Picton made in the series that would become his latest exhibition ‘A Deeper Picture’, and it’s thematically the darkest. Drawing on Tarkovsky’s Nostalgia, Picton builds the image in hand-cut layers of printed paper: Roman Forum architecture, flames, candlelight, and film stills, collapsing time and reference into a single dense surface.
The scene at its center is Domenico’s self-immolation atop the statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitoline Hill, the ancient seat of Roman power and a site of sacrifice long before Tarkovsky placed his character there. Aurelius, the stoic philosopher-emperor whose Meditations remain in print two thousand years on, whose reign marked the end of Rome’s golden era. His son Commodus succeeded him, ignored the senate, ignored all counsel, and became what historians regard as Rome’s worst emperor. He was assassinated. The empire entered civil war.
Tarkovsky’s film carries this weight without resolution. Domenico’s act of purification by fire is taken up by the protagonist Andrei, who in his final act carries a lit candle across a drained pool, the flame passed between them, the sacrifice incomplete and then completed. A world gone astray. A humanity that has lost its bearings through materialism and the erosion of faith. Picton does not draw the line to the present out loud. The title does that quietly on its own.
Matthew Picton | ‘A Deeper Picture’
Now on view until June 27
Matthew Picton
‘No Great Masters’, 2025.
Hand-cut archival pigment print assemblage.
35 × 55.5 inches
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Film stills from Nostalgia, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983.
Marco Dente, Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, 1515-27. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, 1959.
