V1 GALLERY PROUDLY PRESENTS
Body Language
A solo exhibition by Matthew Stone
Matthew Stone's (b. 1982) human landscapes are monumental and simple, strong and fragile. His mounds of naked bodies are presented as multidimensional beings full of life.
The pivotal questions are of separation and return, of challenges to perceptions of individuality. Separated bodies physically return; placed together to undergo a romantic mutation that enables a metaphysical reconnection. Stone uses the interplay of light and darkness to follow sculptural curves and surfaces, awakening the imagination's desire to delve into the (c)overt.
It is this polarisation that creates the fields of tension in all of Stone's works. Our surroundings and ourselves often seem divided into irreconcilable binaries: right/wrong, light/dark, good/evil, I/other. Rather than rejecting these overly simplistic, seeming contradictions, Stone proposes new contexts for their powerful co-existence.
In his performative rituals and collectively minded shoots the camera becomes a shamanic tool used to invoke and create history, rather than to document it. With art as his weapon of choice Matthew challenges fear and denudes a newly defined optimism that not only sheds light on man, but also on the endless possibilities we are all composed of.
Matthew Stone was recently named the most influential living British artist under 30 by The Sunday Times and Norman Rosenthal, curator and critic, has draw comparison to the energy of a young Damien Hirst. This is Matthew Stone's first solo exhibition in Denmark.
