马特‧法兰克斯1970年生于英格兰北部约克郡，先后就读斯塔福德郡大学及伦敦金匠学院，现于伦敦生活和工作。
法兰克斯与他同期的雕塑家一样，作品主要采用大量生产的工业物料及日常消耗品作为材料。他在大型泡沫塑料上，制作幽默奇异的形像，且取材广泛，从高雅艺术到流行文化都有。法兰克斯曾这样形容自己的作品：「创作时，我总是任由意象先行，物料的限制以及我对物料粗浅笨拙的处理手法，就大致决定了作品的面貌。我可能看过贝尼尼塑像的某些秀发如云、衣袂飘然的作品，并尝试在物料上进行演化。材料是适合的，但为了不过于工整和讲究，我喜欢随意一点，有时更是故意的随心。只取大概意思即可，我并不希望作品只着重表面雕琢……我决定复制史诗式的一剎那，它只存在于特定时空，或只曾在电影里出现。我的蘑菇云就是这样诞生的，用意是以最简陋的材料去捕捉最震撼的事件。」
「我时常参考绘画、当代插图及平面设计，并从中抽取灵感，有点像拆件的方式。事实上，很多设计师－平面设计师、插画家－ 都会借鉴纯艺术的手法，反之亦然。在各类创作互相借鉴之时，我亦从中有所得着。由于参考来源主要是平面的，或至少是它的平面复制品，将之转为立体便是将它们带进真实世界。实际上，最终还是要看我如何诠释这些图像— 把它们轻微改造，赋予个人特色，亦同时使作品带有易于辨析的独特风格。它有种离经叛道的姿态，又或者可说是一份执迷。」
马特‧法兰克斯近期个展有：柏比‧豪尔德沃夫画廊及高伟绅律师事务所(伦敦，2008)；由当代艺术协会举办之展览「轰!!」（经济学人广场，伦敦，2007)；「现在艺术」计划（泰特英国美术馆，2002）；德土希画廊（奥克兰，2002）；艾利森‧雅克画廊(伦敦，2002)。近期参与的联展有︰「都会兴起：来自伦敦的新艺术」（文化事务研究所，伦敦、上海、北京，2006）；以及「8x8x8」(肥皂厂画廊，明尼阿坡里斯，2006)。
Matt Franks was born in Yorkshire in the north of England in 1970, and studied at Staffordshire University and at Goldsmiths College in London. He lives and works in London.
Matt Franks is one of a generation of British sculptors whose work is made from mass-produced industrial materials and everyday ephemera. He carves huge blocks of Styrofoam to produce humorous and bizarre works with a broad spectrum of references, from high art to pop culture. As Franks describes his work “I’m always trying to let the imagery decide itself as I’m making the object so that the limitations of the material and the way I handle it — the clumsiness — kind of dictate the outcome. I may be looking at something by Bernini with lots of flowing hair and drapes and I’ll translate that into this material. It’s entirely appropriate in this material but you know through working with it and trying not to become too crafted and too fussy — I like to let things slip a bit, kind of deliberately. It’s an approximation and plus I don’t want to push the work into the realms where it’s all about surface and perfection… I decided to copy epic flash points that really only exist in time and space. Points that have no other existence, except in terms of film. So I made the mushroom clouds — that was all about using impoverished material to capture something that was momentous.
I’m always looking at painters and contemporary illustrations and graphic design and just lifting bits out of that. So it’s a little bit cannibalistic because a lot of the designers — graphic designers, illustrators — they’re all borrowing from the fine art tradition and vice versa, so there’s this swapping going over and I’m kind of taking from that crossover that’s happening there. Since my sources are mainly two-dimensional, or at least taken from reproductions, changing them into the three-dimensional brings them into the real world. Effectively, it comes back to my own interpretation of these images — twisting them slightly so they become more my own, but also a kind of idiosyncratic way that people recognise. An eccentricity of some kind — maybe an obsession.”
Matt Franks has had recent solo shows at Pippy Houldsworth, London and Clifford Chance, London in 2008; Fooooom!!, commissioned by Contemporary Art Society, Economist Plaza, London, 2007; Art Now, Tate Britain, Te Tuhi Gallery, Auckland and Alison Jacques, London in 2002. Recent group exhibitions include Metropolis Rise: New Art From London, ICA, London, Shanghai and Beijing and 8x8x8 at The Soap Factory, Minneapolis in 2006.