Platform Graduate Award 2018 – Focus on Luke Dawes

Luke Dawes is a recent graduate of the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University. He has been nominated by Modern Art Oxford for the Platform Graduate Award 2018. He is one of the five artists shortlisted for the award.

“My Practice attempts to synthesise disparate visual vocabularies, materialities and imageries, as a means of digesting material culture. I adopt a quasi-painterly, quasi-sculptural approach to making; a position that enables the outcomes to be considered not only objects in themselves, but configurations or units of particular gestures, actions and workings. Through a series of dualities, High and Low, serious and playful, slap-dash and crafted, I intend to question the value attribute to particular materialities, and modes of display.

“The specificity of forms and materiality adopted in my works are frequently brought into a realm of fabrication and falsity, where they are often denied their assumed function and instead act as props, visual flair embellishment or even structural support. I am interested in questioning the purposefulness of art production and art objects, and the questionable usefulness of the ability to enjoy artworks on a visceral level.

“Participating in Platform has been a rewarding and insightful experience. The opportunity to showcase my work as a solo exhibition, give an artist talk at Modern Art Oxford, and to have public engagement with my work has been really valuable. Platform has been a significant juncture in my early career, between the security of art education, into life as a practising artist.

“I am currently living and working in Cardiff. You can follow my work via my Instagram or website.

“I would like to thank Sarah Mossop and the team at Modern Art Oxford and CVAN for their support during the exhibition.”

Image: Lexicon, Luke Dawes, 2017, from the ‘Self-Assembly’ exhibition at Modern Art Oxford, 2018.