The world is about to fall in love with Matthew Stone. Well, at least the part of the world that hasn’t fallen in love with him yet, throughout his career as an artist and (self-proclaimed) shaman. And for more than a decade and a half, Stone has been interconnecting worlds through his jobs as a painter, photographer, sculptor, performance artist, writer, Optimist (capital letter included) and cultural shaker. All in one.
MATTHEW STONE, DIGITAL BRUSH STROKES
In 2004, Matthew Stone launched a manifesto in which he addressed the need for Optimism in the new century we had just embarked on. Since then, his artistic career has been growing to such levels that, at present, FKA Twigs has chosen him to create the cover of her newest album. What has been the path that has led him to today been like?
The most surprising thing about his curriculum is, if you’re not familiar with his work and influence, the Optimist aspect. Yes, with a capital letter. One of the first times that Matthew Stone caught the attention of the public eye was precisely in the year 2004 when he launched a manifesto in which the proclaimed the need for Optimism for life in the new century. We were living the hangover that was brought on by the Twin Towers, so it’s easy to understand why humanity needed a positivity boost.
And still, Stone’s vision on Optimism isn’t naive nor simplistic. The artist knows that Optimism can’t predict the future, but he’s not tired of declaring that it is a unique force when it comes to adopting a strategy. And, above all, Matthew goes for a take on Optimism that is followed by action because without action Optimism can become a created need that can even lead to anxiety. You only need to watch the commotion caused by the need to show happiness 24/7 on social media to understand the visionary nature of this manifesto.
What’s interesting here is that Stone has succeeded in throwing this world vision into artistic imagery that has been mutating its skin until finding its current form. His work is recognisable for its exploration of the tension between the past and the future, between the classic pictorial representation and the digital rupture of these same representation rules. It’s necessary to understand his creative process to understand the final result: the artist uses different software to create invisible human form models to which he applies great strokes of multicolour paint that, when rendered, create light effects and a three-dimensional perspective that challenge the eye at the same time that they seduce it. Once created, these worlds that can only exist in a merely virtual plane, are printed by Stone on big canvases, challenging the onlooker to imagine how such an advanced technique has managed to result in such a classic format.
The latest person to date to have been fascinated by the work of Matthew Stone has been FKA Twigs, who has turned to him to create the cover of her imminent album Magdalene. In fact, she had already turned to him for the album of her EP M3LL155X, but we have to admit that that work was not as representative of his world. This one, however, will surely be a turning point for him: the moment in which the name of this artist will start to begin to be well-known by a whole ensemble of people that aren’t related to the art world and who will fall in love with his work. Or is there any other choice than falling in love when you stumble upon an Optimist (with a capital letter) like him?
