This work is part of Morgan Stokes’ 2024 exhibition, Skeleton.

Following Morgan’s previous exhibition with Curatorial+Co., Skin, which examined the outermost layer, Skeleton ventures within. The show hums with a naked, elemental current. We find the works 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, Skeleton 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 works embody a corporeality, they are studies in matter and not images, and can be seen as formal exercises 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.