Matthew Stone, FKA Twigs, Magdalene
Photograph courtesy Surface Magazine

Surface Magazine
The Transcendent Pain of FKA Twigs’ Magdalene
November 8th, 2019
By Ryan Waddoups

From the moment that FKA Twigs unveiled the album artwork for Magdalene, her highly anticipated follow up to 2014’s critically acclaimed LP1, a five-year wait somehow felt worth it. The album’s nine cinematic and deeply introspective tracks, each accomplished works of art on their own, amount to a remarkable gestalt, an operatic tour de force that soundtracks years of highly publicized personal struggles. Since LP1, Twigs split from long-term boyfriend Robert Pattinson and had six fruit-size fibroid tumors removed from her uterus, jeopardizing her ability to physically express her music through dance and theatrics. “I never thought heartbreak could be so all-encompassing… that my body could stop working to the point that I couldn’t express myself in the ways that I’ve always loved and found so much solace,” she said in a statement.

Magdalene recounts the fraught narrative of a devastated woman looking inward to reclaim her autonomy from the unforgiving public eye and a body that was failing her. Welcoming us inside this universe is the disarmingly vulnerable album artwork crafted by British artist and longtime collaborator Matthew Stone, whose work often deconstructs the human form through a combination of painting and digital manipulation. The cover image, as well as the album’s two accompanying visuals, depict Twigs as a humanoid figure lavishly adorned with Stone’s signature sweeping brushstrokes and kaleidoscopic, dimension-blurring expressionism—an ideal visual counterpart to Magdalene’s lush production and ethos of empowerment. “The way she uses her voice, both emotionally and lyrically, feels so grounded, and I wanted to reflect that in some way,” he tells me over the phone.

Read the full article here.