Memory loss and a new life
10 September 2008 Matthew Squire’s story is one of memory loss and a new life as an artist. It is, he says, as if “God has given me two lives”.
Today, Matthew is an artist and musician. He paints, carves and does tapestry, and his work can be seen in TheNewDowse exhibition My House Surrounded by a Thousand Suns. He’s also written his autobiography.
Up until 5 April 1991, he was a teacher and a traveller, fluent in six languages: English, Mandarin, French, Vietnamese, German and Spanish.
But that day, his life changed utterly. Showing his students how to escape a fire, he jumped on to a roof, went through a skylight and fell four-and-a half metres on to his head. Unconscious for nearly three weeks, his “second” life started from the time he opened his eyes. Everything before that moment was lost – and still eludes him today.
“I didn’t know anyone or anything: Mum, Dad, my eight brothers and sisters, friends, students, the six languages I could speak,” he recalls.
Over the next three years, he had to learn how to speak English again. “My life became very different,” he says. “Fortunately – and surprisingly – I became good at painting, carving and doing tapestries. Before the accident, I was too busy doing other things to think about art but after the accident, that side of me started coming out.”
Two different lives
And so, Matthew says, he has been given the chance to have two different and interesting lives. “But the reason for life is always the same – to live in a worthwhile and hopeful way – no matter how many times it changes.”
It’s a story that has captured the imagination of Tom Kelly, producer of The Gravy, an arts show screening on TVNZ’s free-to-air digital Channel 6. Matthew is one of 30 New Zealand artists who will be profiled on a new series of The Gravy, when it goes to air in December 2008.
“We profile artists in all kinds of creative disciplines – from music and painting to tattoos and taxidermy,” Tom says. “With Matthew, I was particularly interested in the way his work explores his previous and unremembered life, using photos and diaries, and gives new meaning to his life today."
Fortunately, Matthew kept diaries and took photos during his five years of overseas travel before the accident. Without them, he wouldn’t know what his previous life had been like.
“I often travelled alone and had to learn the language of wherever I was. For some reason, I seemed to pick up languages easily,” he says. “Because of the accident, I lost all of the languages but I can speak French and Mandarin again.”
At first, he says, he got angry and frustrated because his life had changed so much. “It took me two years to recognise the friendships I had and about five years from the accident to feel that my life was coming back to me again.”
About 12 years ago, friend Ted Downing introduced him to Pablos Art Studio in Wellington. Although he has since moved to Levin, he still travels to Pablos and works there once a week.
"Doing my own thing"
“When I first started painting, I partly copied Rousseau and Picasso’s work,” Matthew recalls. “Then I concentrated on doing my own thing. A lot of my paintings are about travel, using the photos I took before the accident.
“But then I started doing paintings of Wellington: the buildings, people on the harbour, animals – mysterious things. It’s been marvellous because a lot of people like my Wellington paintings.”
He also enjoys doing tapestry work and says it’s a good way to pass the time when he’s travelling somewhere. In September, he will travel first to Vietnam and then to Switzerland.
“When I was in Switzerland a couple of years ago, I did some paintings and tapestries for my friends there. Andreas gave me a clarinet and so I taught myself how to play it. This time, I know they’ll have a lot of paintings they’ll want me to do. Hopefully, they’ll pay for it with lots of boxes of Swiss chocolate.”