MATTHEW PREST
A B O U T
Matthew Prest makes performance and installation that exists in the space between theatre and performance art. He holds a BFA in Sculpture, Performance and Installation, from the College of Fine Arts, UNSW and has trained at Ecole Philippe Gaulier, Paris in Bouffon and Clown.
His practice includes some solo work, but mostly involves collaborations with other artists working across disciplines in devised processes to create original works in which intimacy, danger, laughter, anarchy, endurance, dancing, music and space are all key elements in shaping a visceral experience for the audience.
His significant works to date include The Tent, performed for an audience of 25 who were served a homemade beef stew inside a custom-built tent in a disused car park in inner city Melbourne; Hole in the Wall, with Clare Britton, which placed the audience in small, movable rooms to create a disorienting, morphing architecture for a performance; and Whelping Box with Branch Nebula and Clare Britton which positioned the audience in a giant 10m x 10m whelping box/dog-fighting ring as 2 men performed a series of strange and exhausting tasks in an attempt to transcend their physical limits.
He is a current recipient of a Creative Australia Fellowship for Young and Emerging Artists from the Australia Council 2012-14 and is participating in Robert Wilson's Watermill Summer Program in New York. He has been awarded a 2010 Green Room award for Hole in the Wall and nominated for a 2012 SMAC award for Whelping Box.
For more information contact: matthewprest@gmail.com
For Whelping Box contact producer Harley Stumm: harley@intimatespectacle.com.au
