Matt Hope was born in Hammersmith, London in 1976 where he spent the first twenty years of his life. In 1994 after completing tertiary college he attended Chelsea school of Art in London. As a teenager he spent his spare time feeding his new found interest in electronic music and “Rave culture” with home made sound rigs hacked together from what ever was available.

The first of these speaker systems were built from wooden shuttering retrieved from building sites and refuse containers. During this period Hope began to participate in the production of underground warehouse parties (Raves) taking place in the many disused industrial sites across London then Paris and Prague performing as a DJ with other members of a loosely organized group known as Vox Populi.

Having completed a foundation course at Chelsea Art school he attended Winchester school of Art in Hampshire, UK graduating in 1999 with a (1) st class degree in Fine Art Sculpture. At Winchester he received stern supervision from professors and sculptors John Gibbons and Martin Rodda building many construction in including a large home made metal waste bin.

Hope continued to study Fine Art obtaining an MFA from the University of California, San Diego, receiving guidance from professor and Art historian, John Welchman, Artists Ruben Ortiz Torrez and Natalie Jeremijenko. During his study at UCSD he was awarded a fellowship from the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) where he created from blue prints an extensive 3D computer model of the new 200,000 square feet facility built at the campus.

He also continued to organize events and happenings akin to the earlier sound systems. Alongside fellow MFA candiates Jon Phillips and Nataniel Clark they performed under the name Mesh FM, producing projects such as A month of compaction, Realtime and Brainstorm -a homemade super computer. His thesis project at UCSD ‘Hornmassive’ was the sum total of two years work, designing, calculating, fabricating and maching the hundreds of parts that it comprised. The enormous speaker system was first exhibited at the Supersonic show at Arts center Pasadena in Los Angeles. Hope has continued to design and build both conventional and unconventional speaker systems up to this day

Between studying he also worked commercially as a structural welder (requiring special training and qualification gained at The Welding Institute, Cambridge UK in 1999). He then gained valuable practical experience in modern fabrication techniques, on site fitting and the rigging of large structural elements weighing many tons and also undertook visualization CAD drafting work. Hope now works full time as an Artist represented by ACE gallery Los Angeles for which he is mounting his first large scale solo exhibition due to open in 2006.