Since having children three years ago, my practice has shifted significantly in form. Taking cues from formative feminist artists such as Mary Kelly and Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and contemporary artists like Ghislaine Leung, I’ve changed the way I work to produce what I’ve been calling ‘minor work’—art that is quieter, smaller, less complete or less concerned with clarity and coherence. My recent exhibitions at Artlink (Donegal) and Kingsgate Project Space (London) featured collages (https://www.dekersaint.com/fecundity-collages) and sculptures (https://www.dekersaint.com/small-sculptures-2024) that began with the material remains of daily acts of maintenance and care associated with being a working parent.
Alongside this, I’ve developed a practice of improvised speech-as-writing, producing performances and written works that are documents of one-off attempts to think through a subject while walking—often between my daughter’s nursery and my work (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fugue-dialectics/id1810216089). This grows from an ongoing podcast practice (The Bad Vibes Club – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bad-vibes-club/id1220925467), where I speak with creative practitioners about their work and ideas.
If awarded the Dover Prize, I would use the funding to develop this idea of minor work further—through research, studio work, performance, writing, and a new podcast series. This moment feels particularly urgent: after several years of adapting my practice around early parenthood, I’m now in a position to consolidate those shifts and push them forward, connecting my ideas across my different ways of working.
I would spend time researching artists who’ve addressed parenthood and art, grounding my work in a deeper understanding of the feminist genealogy of this kind of work.
I’d continue developing sculptures and collages in the studio. I would focus on improving the structural stability of the sculptures—exploring techniques like scanning, 3D printing and painting, and experimenting with new fixing, sticking and coating methods so they can be re-exhibited without total disassembly.
I would make new spoken word performances, to exist either as recorded audio or as written texts toward producing a publication.
Finally, I’d interview a selection of current artist-parents from across the UK—particularly focusing on Darlington and the North East—on how having children has changed their work, publishing these as a podcast series. This would broaden the conversation around artist parents, and directly inform my own evolving practice by placing it in dialogue with others.
My work’s emphasis on everyday creativity and minor forms makes it particularly suited to building connections with local audiences. Bringing this work to Darlington, through exhibitions, alongside workshops and an events programme would help build a dialogue between contemporary art and local audiences, reframing care and maintenance as creative acts as well as offering an accessible way into creating art through noticing and arranging the materials of daily life.
By interviewing artist-parents based in Darlington and the North East, I would foreground voices from the region that are often excluded from narratives of artistic success. This would highlight the work of local artists and draw attention to the complexity and innovation of practices shaped by care work, parenting, and the constraints of daily life.
Having studied in the North East at Northumbria University, and exhibited in the region I still have connections with artists and curators across the region. If selected, I would use the Dover Prize to deepen those relationships—partly through the interviews for podcast series, partly through starting conversations with connections more generally about my work for the prize. This may well lead to other opportunities to present the work I make as part of the prize in other locations around the North East.
I have a wide-ranging art practice including drawing, sculpture, and collage, as well as performance, video, and digital work in the form of livestreamed broadcasts and podcasts. I studied in Newcastle, graduating from Northumbria University in 2007. I moved to London in 2008 and continued working with artists and organisations in the North East for several years after leaving. After a year as an Associate at Open School East in London, I worked freelance as an artist and musician from 2014 until 2021. I worked on a project-by-project basis, developing ambitious pieces over intense periods. I exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, received commissions from a range of organisations, and participated in a number of residencies. This is detailed elsewhere in my application. After having my first child in 2021, I had to adapt to a new life in which time in the studio was always limited by my responsibilities as a parent, leaving fewer opportunities for intensive, project-based work. The psychoanalyst and writer Lisa Baraitser has written of the mother as a subject who is always just about to be interrupted, and I experienced something like that. Over time, I developed a new way of working—one based on accumulating material gradually and working in shorter bursts in the studio. This approach led to new collages, sculptures, and videos. In 2024, I presented two exhibitions of this work: one at Artlink in Donegal, and another at Kingsgate Project Space in London. Alongside this shift in studio practice, podcasting has become central to my research and discursive work. I’ve produced a podcast for several years, but since becoming a parent, the format has offered a focused way to engage in conversations with other practitioners—whether in person or remotely—despite the constraints on my time. I’ve only recently begun applying for awards, residencies, and prizes again, as I now feel able to commit to larger projects and sustained periods of work. I’m friends with Rebecca Moss, who won the Dover Prize in 2023. Her positive experience and the support she received to make new work encouraged me to apply.
Do you have a degree in visual or applied arts at undergraduate and/or post-graduate level? Please provide details. (200 words)
I have a 1st class hons BA fine Art from Northumbria University, 2007.
I was an Associate of Open School East in their first year in London, 2013-2014
I have a 1st class hons BA fine Art from Northumbria University, 2007.
I was an Associate of Open School East in their first year in London, 2013-2014
Arts Council England Grants: I have received four Grants for the Arts/Project Grants, ranging from £8,000 to £14,000, for producing and exhibiting artwork (Space in Between Gallery, Kingsgate Project Space, Artlink Ireland) conducting archival research, hosting workshops and performances for The Bad Vibes Club.
Additional Funding: Received from organizations like Jerwood Foundation (UK), Fluxus (France), and ECF labs (EU) for training, travel and other projects.
Awards: 2020-21. One year studio residency at Kingsgate Workshop, London
2020. Artist Commission, Open School East
2017. ACE award for ‘Feeling Bad’, a events series by The Bad Vibes Club
2016. ACE award for ‘Interruptions’ by The Bad Vibes Club
2015. ACE award for new sculptural work by the ARKA group
2014. Travel grant from Fluxus to take part in ‘Composing Differences’ at MOMA PS1
Yes, in the form of The Bad Vibes Club podcast where I interview artists and other creative practitioners about their work.
I have had work commissioned by: ICA London, Serpentine Galleries, Batlic39, Southwark Park Galleries, Lafayette Anticipations, Modern Art Oxford, MOMA PS1, WRO Biennale Wroclaw, Art Licks Weekend, Whitstable Biennale and other organisations and galleries.
I was longlisted for a round of Arts Council collection acquisitions by the artist John Walter and had a studio visit, but I was not selected.
Yes, see below list:
2024. ‘Wasters’, photobook published by Chateau International
2024. ‘Why do I keep Crying?’in Performance Research: DOI:10.1080/13528165.2023.2321063
2020. ‘Acceptable Blockages’ in Sluice Magazine
2020. Art Monthly 439, Lauen Velvick, Online Round up.
2019. Food sculpture photographs, in Musea: The Modern Muse, Hong Kong, Conde Nast.
2018. ‘Force Feeding, Taste and Restraint’ in Still Life #2.
2018. ‘Fire’, The Bad Vibes Club reader
2018 ‘Things, Money, Art, Work, Class’, Corridor8
2017. ‘The Aesthetics of Awkwardness’, Manifestaciones Publicas de Afecto, BAR projects
I worked with Space in Between, London from 2010 until they closed in 2016.
I’ve been on a few residencies:
2019. Residency at Artlink, Ireland, which led to my recent exhibition at the gallery in 2024
2018. Bothy residency at Southwark Park Galleries, London, working with young asylum seekers and making radio broadcasts
2015. Residency at Modern Art Oxford
2011. Residency at Wyspa Institute of Art, Poland
2010. Residency at The Royal Standard, Liverpool
Email: matthew.giraudeau@gmail.com
Address: 72 Shell Road, London, London, County (optional), SE13 7TY, GB
Local Authority: Lewisham
