Borbala Szanto is the recipient of the 2017 David Troostwyk Studio Award. The award, given each year, provides the recipient with a rent-free studio for one year at Martello Street, E8 — the SPACE studio where Robin Klassnik first opened Matt’s Gallery in 1979. Alongside Szanto has received mentoring from Klassnik and support from Jordan Baseman, Head of Moving Image, RCA.

Szanto’s exhibition is the fourteenth is a series of 10-day shows at Matt’s Gallery. The artist will create a new installation with modular elements or ‘hyphens’ that flicker between an archetype and a mental image, between what is present and what is imagined. Hyphen is an exercise in visual anticipation.

The artist will explore the structural building blocks of the everyday home against the ever-changing architecture of a disproportionate global city-scape. Szanto seeks to enact shifts in scale - moving between units of measurement, life-size and maquettes, the quotidian and the global. Each sculptural element exists as ‘hyphen’ or spacer.

Szanto has conceived of her exhibition in response to Tomas Klassnik’s architectural intervention into the fabric of the Gallery’s home in Ron Henocq’s studio at 92 Webster Road. The walls of the 3x3x3m cube become the borders of a staged universe. Planed timber and steel piping climb through the walls to alternately link and divide external and internal spaces. Metal knuckles and prosthetics-like solutions recall the joints of the human body.

The award is named after David Troostwyk, (5 August 1929 – 29 September 2009, RCA class of 1956, studying alongside Richard Smith and Robyn Denny). Working in an array of media that encompassed painting, text and sound, he produced works with an approach that was sparse, minimal and staunchly conceptual.

In 1979, Troostwyk became the first artist to be shown by Robin Klassnik, in what was Robin’s studio space in Martello Street, London. This collaboration led to what was soon to be known internationally as Matt’s Gallery, London. Over 39 years, Klassnik has collaborated with hundreds of artists to help them produce ground-breaking artworks. These exhibitions and events have impacted significantly on countless audiences engaged with and interested in contemporary art.

Matt’s Gallery was founded as an artist-led, experimental platform: actively exploring the idea of the exhibition as a discursive space. The David Troostwyk / Matt’s Gallery Studio Award continues Matt’s Gallery’s commitment to artists. Borbala Szanto is the fourth recipient of the award. Hannah Skinner will be the fifth, inheriting the studio from October 2018.

The 2017 David Troostwyk / Matt’s Gallery Studio Award was supported by the David Troostwyk Trust (Barbara Cavanagh, Olivia Cavanagh and Robin Klassnik), Matt’s Gallery and RCA School of Art and Humanities. From 2018 a new partnership with BA Sculpture at Camberwell UAL will begin. Future exhibitions will take place at Camberwell Space. In January 2019 Camberwell Space will hold an exhibition of work by David Troostwyk, curated by Daniel Sturgis, to introduce this partnership to students, staff and the public.

Matt’s Gallery thanks the Arts Council England and Ron Henocq Fine Art for their generous support.