MATT FRANKS
"I am alive and you are dead"

1. 11. 2005 - 10. 12. 2005

vamiali’s is proud to present the first solo show in Athens of British artist Matt Franks. The artist will be present at the opening.
Matt Franks presents a new series of sculptures. Franks place himself in the field of traditional curved sculpture. His work draws inspiration from intertwined and overlapping influences from the excesses of baroque art to pop culture tinged with under current of the supernatural and gothic. The materials combine disposable and impoverished polymers and plastic transformed into fantastic configurations redolent of modernist art, baroque intensity, twisted cartoon forms and fluorescent colours that radiate an unearthly presence.

In this new entity he will present three new sculptures titled “Zombie Reanimator”, “NecroBaroque” and “Twin Voodoo Death Skull”. These new works are laboriously handmade to look like prototypes of a new order of things, resembling fragments of source material thrown together: sci-fi themes, dreams and fears, existence in between states, absurdity, defying logic, deconstructionism science fiction and inspired by the work of writer Philip K Dick (Blade Runner etc.). Hand carved from extruded styro-foam and then coated in flock to resemble oversize toys the sculptures emanate a subversive and abominable purpose; slaves or animations from another state or reality. The surfaces have lost their smoothness gaining a velvet and tactile characteristic; the process of applying “velvet flock” combines a creepy sensuality with an organic and animated energy.

Franks’ sculptures are three dimensional volumetric forms of two dimensional graphic renderings. They exist in a liminal state; they are drawn out from feverish dreams, dredged from the subconscious and transcribed in full toxic colour. His works relates to altered states of the mind and imagination, blurring of realities and uncertainties while uses humour as a tool of deployment. They simultaneously maintain an exploration of appropriated styles and a playful use of abstraction whilst foregrounding a darkly comical and figurative ingredient. Ambiguous in appearance and purpose, the faint grotesqueness and fluorescence combines abjection and absurdity. Franks’ works find modernism and postmodernism labels patronising and didactic, implies with his work the importance of fun and adventure where at the same time they are extremely generous with the viewers, almost exuberant.

Matt Franks was born in Yorkshire, 1970. Lives and works in London. Selected exhibitions: Tate Britain (solo), The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (group), One in the Other (solo), Beverly Art Gallery (solo).

NECROBAROQUE, mixed media, 2005

ZOMBIE REANIMATOR, mixed media, 2005

TWIN VOODOO DEATH SCULL, mixed media, 2005