Morgan Stokes

Morgan Stokes' work hums with a naked, elemental current, found in a state of flux between creation and destruction, openness and darkness, lightness and heaviness, fullness and emptiness. Balance, tone, space and, pertinently, form: the elements of painting have been amputated from one another to be scrutinised in a material dimension. This emphasis on form underscores the process of creation as each work highlights its own physicality. Thus, the show also become a meditative exploration of not only the creative act but also the medium of painting itself and what lies beneath its surface. That is to say, this work is an exploration of an unseen essentialness.

Evident here is Stokes’ continuing preoccupation in how our mode of perceptions change as the world becomes increasingly mediated by the screen. The work embodies a corporeality, a study in matter and not images, and can be seen as a formal exercise in reduction to understand the vitality of form and material. Stokes is not only investigating the objecthood of painting, he is imbuing matter with a philosophical resonance in an age of the immaterial.