The in-betweens of the “calm within chaos” aka “peace within war” reside where the complexity and one’s strength underlie profound experiences of spiritual insights, amidst the life that pulls its strings. Matthew Stone’s art forces us to view the density of interconnections, it speaks of the parameters where words fail to make sense and meaning perceived by senses begins to take the lead. At COEVAL we had the truest delightful opportunity to speak with him about his life, works and his reflections onto our breathing living planet.

Hi Matthew, I'm curious to know a bit more about your background and upbringing. How was your social and cultural environment growing up? From 1982 until, say, the beginning of the year 2000, how has it been? And what were the facts and feelings that made obvious of your perception on life as anti-generic and something as a matter to be expressed?

I was born in London but grew up in the countryside. We lived in a stone cottage, with no means of electricity, on the edge of a canal surrounded by fields and trees. I spent my childhood swimming in the river and building dens in the woods. My parents were working-class hippies who were looking for alternative ways to raise their children and wanted us to grow up outside of a city. There is a lot of creativity on both sides of my family, and I was encouraged to explore my own. I got into trouble at primary school for disrupting the classes and I think it was identified then, that allowing a focus to emerge on my creativity would be a way to help and support me. When I was a little bit older, I used to visit an internet cafe in town, which was unusual at the time. A TV station discussed including me in a documentary focused on people who used the internet. As much as I loved the countryside I was desperate to get to a city and be part of a creative community.

What were the events and encounters that drew you into practising your crafts more and pursuing art academically? What challenges provoked and inspired you? What were your first experimentations and explorations like – speaking of the emotions and senses that have been discovered?

I was encouraged to follow my interests academically from the very beginning, which was a huge support and privilege. I was first interested in studying graphic design and felt intuitive that the art world might not offer me the space to have the type of wide-reaching cultural impact that I craved. After beginning a degree in graphics at Camberwell, in London, I changed to the fine art painting department after the initial experimental nature of the graphics, the course gave a way to more steadily commercial nature.

Your first exhibition was about “Optimism as a cultural rebellion”, touching on the notion of art as both a healing and provoking act… I see the work as the modern life renaissance celebrating human diversity, and the power of love transcending the physical. What did you go through before this manifesto? What are the experiences and inspirations behind this collection?

I coined the phrase Optimism as Cultural Rebellion in 2004. It was part of a manifesto I wrote with the help of a friend. It later became the title of my 2011 first show at The Hole gallery in New York. In 2004 I perceived a widespread cultural nihilism that felt at odds with my own excitement and enthusiasm for art and creativity. I felt that there should be more space for credibly creating positive visions of the future and that cultivating optimism would facilitate that process. I was keen to explore the idea but also had a personal and psychological need to hold onto and intellectually advocate for its importance. As I interrogated the idea, I learned more about myself and how positivity can sometimes be oppressive. Somewhere in this process of this continual interrogation into the nature of optimism, I realised that I had lost my own. It was only as I rediscovered its importance to me, that I really realised it had been gone.

As an artist, what were the first few matters that immediately made you sensitive and active to work upon? Your work touches the intangibility surrounding our existence, with a positive and active light entangled with sophistication and both subtle and direct emotions. I’d like to know your personal understanding of human life as a collective and what you think about the unknown. How did the covid 19 lockdown impact you, your works, and your psyche? What has (if it) changed?

I became ill in 2012, received a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome diagnosis, and began a very deep healing journey that continues to this day. Along that path, I rediscovered the connection I had to nature when I was a child. Walking my dog on the East London Marshes in 2017, I realised that I recognized them and knew the names and traditional folk medicine uses of some of the plants. I remembered that I’d had an interest in medicinal plants when I was very young, maybe 8 years old. I must have had a book to research them. This connection grew when I entered into a mindfulness practice with an Elder tree and visited it each day for a year. My life changed a lot. I experienced an intense and quite painful spiritual awakening in the process and all of this illustrated life changes that culminated in my moving to a village in the countryside a few months before the lockdowns began. The positive synchronicity of the timing of it all seemed significant to a lot of the people I am closest to and respect the most, which was affirming to me after the struggles I had been experiencing. In some sense, those experiences felt like they prepared me for the lockdowns. But it was hard of course. To begin with, there were no social bubbles and I was alone with my dog for weeks without spending close time with people. I am not alone in this of course and talking to my neighbours over the wall was lovely. I dragged a huge sound system to the top of my garden and started playing one song a day at 6 pm. It was loud and I chose songs that I thought would feel good (and on occasion cathartic) to a wide range of people. It was a risk as a newcomer to the community, but it went down well and gave me a sense of purpose and structure to my day. It was like a dilated DJ set across the first 150 days.

You have explored many interdisciplinary mediums. Before wanting to dive into all of the mediums, I would like to start with knowing your relationship with paints, that you have also extended to a digital space. What about the paints that lure you? I'm aware you are also a performer, writer, and DJ and much more in making. So tuning to multiple expressions… What peculiarities do you find in paints as a medium?

Paint works as a metaphor for flesh in my mind and it feels so full of a beautiful mess and organic flow, the generative potential that I see as underlying in all of life. Painting is a persistently relevant technology that remains and shall remain intact as creative guide for ascending senses, emotions and intellect.

Music is very much the fundamental pillar of any creative, such as you, who hold a political stance with a spiritual objective. I want to know how your exploration of music began at first, what kind of genres are you most in sync with? and how do you calibrate it with your various other mediums that support one another?

I used to DJ a lot and enjoyed how you could shape and enliven the energy of a room. I listen to a lot of new age, ambient stuff these days, flow state etc the stuff you could meditate on and reach a certain kind of trance. Music that takes you on a journey to inner self various aspects of your being.

What is your life on a mundane and regular flow? What keeps you aligned, grounded, inspired, and on track? Have you ever felt dissociated with yourself or others? What keeps you sane and how do you nourish your inner world for your outer?

It mostly involves meditations, guayusa tea, walking out the door leading into nature, gardening, car boot sales, and flea markets. I love to talk on the phone and see my nieces. And yes I have felt entirely disassociated from myself at various points, and now I am very grateful to be back in my body.

What are religion and spirituality in your eyes? What future do you see for humanity and the spiritual practices say 100 years from now? What do you think about psychedelic medicines as a medium for healing and awakening?

Spirituality is the fabric of internal life and the processes by which we relate that to the external and to each other. I think that human beings will continue to create information technologies that replicate spiritual and magical technologies until we cannot tell the difference. I think that psychedelics hold great promise for healing and awakening, but I think like any technology, the way we use them will define the outcome.

I want to know why and what made you name your open sea art collection as “energy portal”? What do you think about new age spirituality? Of the people who are largely speaking of synchronic portals on earth such as Arizona, Nepal, India, Peru, etc.. the rise of interest in numerology, mediumship, astrology, and alike? This rise has happened right as covid lockdown struck us. What is your stance on human thirst for ascension and transcendence at this point in time?

At certain points in the lockdown, during my meditations, I felt very connected to what seemed to be angelic frequencies. At the time, it was hard not to interpret my experiences as being connected to the wider events in the world, as if huge changes were underway. The experience faded and with it my suspicions that we are in a special and spiritually significant moment. Not that there isn’t a need or the potential to actualize transformative healing, but just that the pandemic has been traumatic and that we have responded to the chaos in understandable ways to try and mitigate the impact in ways that feel wholesome. I also think that there is space for a type of consciousness revolution fueled by spiritual information now available online. Many techniques and previously protected teachings are now out there. Some of the traditions speak of a time when things would need to be shared more widely.

What do you think about mental health? How much of it is an illusion and myth? I am referring to the book I recently read by MD Professor Thomas S. Saaz, who talks about the incapability of seeing beyond the veil making medical institutes oppressors in society. Please comment.

I don’t know enough to comment. My own mental health struggles have felt very real and I am not 100% sure whether the ways I have viewed them, often within the realm of transpersonal spiritual awakening and growth, have been a help or a hindrance. At times my focus on growth has functioned as just another way to be harsh on myself and then at others, it has given way to great healing peace.

If I were allowed to get personal, can you please explain your relationship with the ethereal? How would you describe your artistic gifts from a spiritual point of view? What do you think are the reasons for the detachment from intuition and higher self that we notice in our society?

I used to find myself trying very hard while I made art, I felt compelled to make it but didn’t enjoy it mostly. Over time I learned how to interrupt the negative self-talk and entered into states of peacefulness while working. It felt profound in contrast to what I had known. I now find myself wanting to find those states and to just trust the work that emerges from that. I feel more like I am witnessing the outcome, rather than determinedly creating it at that point. This all feels linked to the spiritual understanding I have developed.

What are the latest issues that are concerning or attracting you to work on? Is there anything you can share about your current works in progress?

I am in the development stage and that means trials and tests that might not go anywhere further than a screenshot. I share some of those screenshots on my Discord.