What significance can be found in the structure of something? A skeleton gives shape and coherence to a body. It symbolises the bare essence, the stripped-down truth and thus it also becomes a symbol for the pursuit of authenticity. A skeleton is also death and mortality, like the vanitas, it is a reminder of the transience of life; the temporal against the eternal. Just as the skeletal frame provides both constraint and possibility for movement in a living being, the underlying principles and frameworks in art both limit and liberate.

Following Stokes’ previous exhibition with Curatorial+Co., Skin, which examined the outermost layer, Skeleton flays the surface to examine within. Although the show hums with a naked, elemental current, tensions define the space: lightness vs darkness, lightness vs heaviness, fullness vs emptiness, creation vs destruction, object vs subject. 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 further serves to underscore a certain physicality thus the show becomes a meditative exploration of not only the medium of painting and what lies beneath it’s surface, but also the visceral act of sharing space with matter. 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. Echoing a minimalist aesthetic, the works become performers, they must be experienced in a situation aware of a participant and consequently the beholder becomes the subject. Stokes is not only investigating the objecthood of painting, he seeks to imbue matter with a philosophical resonance in an age of the immaterial. 

Morgan Stokes’ artistic practice delves into the mediums of painting and sculpture, deconstructing them to their fundamental elements. Beginning with the traditional building blocks of each; pigment, cloth, stretcher bars, stone, he embarks upon a process of reinterpretation, interrogating the supposed value of each part and its role within the widely understood formula of what makes an artwork. Both literal and philosophical, Skeleton is a dialogue between body and material; a contemplation on what makes a painting in the digital age. Recalling the movements of Arte Povera, Mono-Ha and Material Realism and considered from a post-internet lens, Skeleton transcends the canvas, acting as a meditation on creation and art, the seen and the unseen.

Skeleton is Stokes’ fourth exhibition with the gallery, following Skin (2023), Virtual Gaze (2022) and Concerning Existence (2021).