Ones to Watch: Morgan Stokes

Exploring our fraught relationship with technology, Morgan Stokes seeks to understand the internet as a place where past and future coexist in the present. Using oils and spray paints, Morgan visualises our relationship and dependency on the virtual realms of the internet through post-minimalist aesthetics. “These quiet pieces oscillate between introspection, melancholia and sardonicism,” he tells. After a four-month artist residency in Berlin, followed by a yearlong stint in Germany, Morgan is now based in Sydney, yet has brought the brutalist sensibilities of his time abroad home, to further explore how virtual and physical worlds relate. His works at once defy and validate the digital screens we increasingly occupy. Seemingly uncomplicated and bare, his works invite us to look a little closer to discover the nuances of simplicity.

Feature image: Morgan Stokes, #C4AA85. Oil, watercolour, acrylic on canvas, framed, 86.5 x 74 x 5.5cm. Courtesy: the artist.