Matt Stokes

Matt Stokes was born in Penzance in 1973. He graduated in 1997 from Newcastle University and has continued to live and work there ever since. He is possibly best described as an anthropologist who makes art. Often working with groups of people linked to music subcultures Stokes makes artworks which celebrate these collective fellowships and their religious dedication toward fringe music genres. In recent years collaboration has taken centre stage in his artistic practice, often acting as director Stokes brings together people creating artworks in partnerships. He typically draws upon music subcultures as a cultural forms, similar to how a poet might put pen to paper, Stokes goes about to create his own cultural forms using the very material and cultures he is investigating to form the artworks he creates.

Stokes rose to prominence in 2002 after his successful residency at Grizedale Art Centre in Cumbria. It was at Grizedale that Stokes created the mixed media installation New Arcadia (2003), which as a project forms the start of his long standing work with music subcultures and the beginnings of his anthropological approach. In Grizedale he investigated the local ‘cave rave’ crew, Out House Productions, who in the early 1990s hosted illegal acid house parties in the Hodge Close Quarry, Cumbria. Assembling an archive of demo tapes, flyers, posters, t-shirts, television footage, newspaper cuttings Stokes curated a Wunderkammer (a curiosity-room), illuminating and persevering the cave rave crew’s explosive tale of TV crews, mounting pressures from the Police and an angry Landlord with sticks of dynamite. Stokes’ Wunderkammer laid out bare the artefacts lost to the archive, retelling and reaffirming the story of the defunct rave organisation. Stokes mixed media installation New Arcadia set terms of negotiation with the nineties rave phenomenon, not establishing meanings but creating a position of entry. From these early beginnings Stokes’ artistic practice has evolved he has expanded upon New Arcadia with his film works Long After Tonight (2006) and Clipper (2006) and the continuing performance series Sacred Selection (2005 – ongoing). In 2006 Stokes received the honoured 2006 Beck’s Futures Prize for the film Long After Tonight.

He has exhibited widely in both Europe and the USA receiving his first USA based commission in 2009. Invited by Arthouse, Austin Texas, Stokes co produced the exhibition These are the days (2009) with New York based gallery ZieherSmith. Stokes submerged himself into the local Punk scene, making artworks from both his personal research and contributions from members of the Austin Punk scene past and present. The show’s focal point was a two channel film These Are the Days. The participants in the film including the band, the audience, and the cinematographers were all drawn from the local Austin Punk scene. The first film documented a specially organised punk show staged by Stokes at the Broken Neck in Austin. The second film, which was created in response at a recording studio at Austin’s Sweatbox Studios, depicts a band’s musical reaction to the first film. By creating a role reversal between audience and performers Stokes’ film asks questions about the nature of participation. These are the days reveals the poetics usually unrecognised in the Punk scene, by spot lighting an unseen beauty Stokes’ film shifts our collective opinion offering new readings of the possibly already read.

One of the Austin musicians, Tim Kerr, also contributed to the Gainsborough Packet (2009), a film directed by Stokes which involved prominent members of the English Folk movement. Working in partnership with the Tyne and Wear Museums Stokes invited several musicians to write a song about John Burdikin, an early 19th Century working class Newcastle hero, who had recorded his heroic tales in letters now cared for by the Tyne and Wear Museums Archive. In a similar spirit to the film These are the days, Stokes’ approach was a process of partnerships. This collaboration between musicians, cinematographers and museum curators culminated in the production of the film The Gainsborough Packet. In this film which uses of styles and techniques traditionally associated with pop music videos we see the British leading folk singer Sam Lee miming to his own words supported by a cast in period costume acting out six episodes of Jon Bodkins heroic tales. By creating a spoof ‘music video’ this artwork makes one look at and rethink the conventions of both folk music and pop music. Be it jovial tales of the mischievous folk singer or the slick, high production values of the pop music.

Matt Stokes artworks are poetic investigations into fringe social groups bound by music. His investigations do not aim to make judgements or search for wrong or right answers, but instead aim to challenge and transform our collective appreciations and understandings of values and styles of these subcultures; often framing beauty sometimes lost to the collective eye.

by Theodor Wilkins, Assistant Curator of Fine Art, Leeds Art Gallery