Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Matt Stokes wins a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award

Matt Stokes. Photo credit: Emile Holba, Courtesy Paul Hamlyn Foundation
WORKPLACE are delighted to congratulate Matt Stokes on winning a highly respected Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists.

Ten awards of £60,000 each are made annually by Paul Hamlyn Foundation, five to visual artists and five to composers. The recipients of Awards for Artists 2018 were announced last night in London by guest speaker Kwame Kwei-Armah OBE.

Matt Stokes is the third WORKPLACE artist to receive a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Artists - previous recipients include Marcus Coates (2008), and Eric Bainbridge (1996)
 
Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists:

Paul Hamlyn Foundation was established by Paul Hamlyn in 1987. Upon his death in 2001, he left most of his estate to the Foundation, creating one of the largest independent grant-making foundations in the UK.

Awards for Artists supports individuals at a timely moment in their careers, giving them the freedom to develop their creative ideas and contributing to their personal and professional growth. The awards are made every year and come with no strings attached – artists are free to use the money in whichever way they decide.

For more information on Paul Hamlyn Foundation Awards for Artists please click here
 
Matt Stokes:

Newcastle-based artist Matt Stokes (born 1973) explores notions of collectivity and shared purpose through inquiry into the situations and beliefs that shape people’s lives and identities. Music – its history, subcultures and socio-political effects – has long been a central focus in his work.

Employing extensive research processes, his projects often evolve into films, installations and events. These outcomes hold collaboration at the centre of their formation, and by working closely with musicians, composers, and tight-knit communities, Stokes seeks to celebrate the groups involved, alongside challenging assumptions about alternative ways of living.

Most recently, Stokes has devised projects employing live action role play (larp), a type of interactive game where participants physically assume roles and act as a character within a set fiction. For Stokes, larps act as both works in themselves, and as prompts to generate ideas and methods for other works that draw from the bleed and ruptures between role-play and real life.

In 2017 Stokes created a multi-channel film for We The People Are The Work: a citywide project in Plymouth, which explored ideas of power, protest and the public. He has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions include WORKPLACE London; Matt’s Gallery, London; Site Gallery, Sheffield; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Seville; De Hallen, Haarlem; Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel; Zabludowicz Collection, London and Arthouse, Austin. Recent group presentations include IMT Gallery, London: an exhibition of activities involving role-playing and M HKA, Antwerp: the first museum exhibition considering the advent and aesthetics of rave alongside its effects on wider culture.

For further information on Matt Stokes please click here
Matt Stokes Dead Sea Deaf Sea, 2017 Wood, rope, steel, hand woven WW2 Royal Navy ratings uniforms each 187 x 274 x 75 cm. Installation view: Matt Stokes Dead Sea Deaf Sea, Workplace London, 2017