Michael Pybus

Goldsmiths College - BA Fine Art

For sales, commissions and to send comments to the artist click here

Artist Statement

Michael Pybus explores portrayals of the world mediated through digitisation, photographic imagery and design. Set against a backdrop of nostalgia, obsolescence and amnesia. Working in a broad scope of media he has developed a body of work which describes an uninhabited fictional landscape of sprawling metropolises, technicolour structures and dilapidated suburban homes.

Inspired by everything from old family photographs taken before he was born to 1980’s computer design through to today’s current obsession of terrorist threat and who’s hot in Hollywood. He reinterprets them into elements of his ever expanding universe.

Pybus is fascinated by the romanticism of the past. He equates this hunger for images of the past to a collective attempt to cope with the loss we feel for it. Contemporary society uses vintage and retro as a comfort blanket, cherry picking visuals and styles from previous eras in an ironic act of image consumption. In a present which feels so uncertain pillaging the past can seem the only way to gain some form of control.

The flat geometric design of the 8-bit video games he played as a child is the perfect platform for Pybus to explore this hunger for the past. Whilst simultaneously allowing for an exploration into shape and colour. Sampling colour schemes from old family photographs and photo-shoots of film stars, he saturates his landscapes with narratives of time, desire and detachment.  

Exhibitions

The Housewarming The Residence, Bethnal Green, London 2005

Summer Show Fosterart, Shoreditch, London, 2005

Summer Salon: with a twist Hackney Museum, Hackney, London 2005

Island Art Film and Video Festival Prenelle Gallery, West India Quay, London 2005

Conurbation Unit 2.4 Kingly Court, Canarby Street, London 2004

Miasma Hexagon Space, Camberwell, London 2003

Art Below Zero Notting Hill Arts Club, Notting Hill, London 2002

Yr : 1 Photographers Gallery, Soho, London 2001

Our Town Millennium Dome, Greenwich, London 2000

Michael Pybus

For sales, commissions and to send comments to the artist.