ABOUT
Michael Skeen explores the boundaries between painting and photography. He works with line, form, and composition with a variety of mediums in various locations. His work employs a visual vocabulary built from deconstructed letter forms to create abstracted hieroglyphs. These forms emphasise the characteristics and potential of the materials he uses to make chemigrams, murals, and paintings.
His chemigram practice involves dismantling and manipulating the mechanics of chemical photography to question the limits of what photography can be. He produces artefacts which condense time, light and chemical reaction into work that sits between the art object and the photograph. He works intuitively with different tempos, energies, and timescales to emphasise potential and discovery without a predetermined destination.
He moves within the constraints of fluidity and fixity while surrendering part of the process to factors outside of his control. His work involves the subconscious and the interaction of chance and decisions made with intent to create photographic tangibilia.
This medium-specific relationship to shape, depth, and materiality similarly informs his large-scale murals and paintings, which are often developed from collages which combine scanned and photocopied drawings with inkwork.
His work is influenced by László Moholy-Nagy, Pierre Cordier, Richard Diebenkorn, Anthony Caro, and Hilla and Bernd Becher.
He has worked at Glasgow School of Art as a workshop assistant in the photography and printmaking departments since 2021, having graduated with a BA in Fine Art Photography that same year.
CV
EXHIBITIONS AND COMMISSIONS
2024:
February
‘Coalesce’ - The Reid Building, Glasgow School of Art. Group exhibition.
2023:
October
Barras Mural - Stevenson Street, Glasgow. Colourways. Solo commission.
2022:
May-August
‘Street Level Photoworks Open 2022’ - Street Level, Glasgow. Group exhibition.
July
‘Storytellers’ - Glue Factory, Glasgow. Group Exhibition.
Cass Art Mural - Queen Street, Glasgow. Colourways. Solo comission.
2021:
December 2021-February 2022
‘FUTUREPROOF’ - Stills Centre for Photography, Edinburgh. Group exhibition.
September
‘More Space for the People’ - Saltspace Cooperative Arts Space. Glasgow. Group exhibition.
July
‘Alternative Degree Show’ - St Enoch Centre, Glasgow. Group Exhibition.
June
‘GSA Showcase 2021: School of Fine Art’ - Glasgow School of Art. Degree Show.
2020:
‘OFF GRID 1’ - Kingston Bridge, Glasgow. Group exhibition.
PUBLICATIONS
2024:
Untitled Collage Publication (forthcoming). Self-published. Glasgow.
Tied To Light. Volume 2. ed. Anna Luk and Lucy Kane. London.
2023:
Abstract Graffiti Magazine. Issue 07. ed. Röd Labyrint Förlag. Sweden.
2022:
Abstract Graffiti Magazine. Issue 05. ed. Röd Labyrint Förlag. Sweden.
2019:
Alter Analog. Interviewed by Tania Kaaz. Denver, Colorado.
EDUCATION
2018-2021:
Fine Art Photography BA. Glasgow School of Art. Scotland.
2017-2018:
Foundation in Art and Design (UAL Accredited). Blackburn College. England.