Michael Gurhy

Michael Gurhy’s work “is small-scale work but potent in terms of emotion. His work addresses youth culture but evokes a knowledge of the unforeseen, of premonition” - Francis Morris, Head of Collections International Art, Tate Modern & Enrique Juncosa, Director, Irish Museum of Modern Art.

Gurhy’s work could be categorised between Freud's two fundamental drives of Eros (The life instinct, which include sexual instincts and the drive to live) and Thanatos (the drive of aggression, sadism, destruction, violence, and death) From a psychoanalytic viewpoint the work is confronting attachment and trauma, childhood fears, fear of abandonment and ultimately the fear of death while transience, beauty and loss read as a subtext. Blurring the lines between fantasy, reality and biography, the work takes on an ‘otherworldliness’ where anthropomorphic animals are messengers and the male body a psychological landscape exploring the corporal and the transcendental.

His drawings are raw and reactionary exposing emotional fragility and moments of tenderness hidden beneath confident lines with a violent use of colour. In his sculptural work the visual language of religious iconography is disrupted and reimagined through the incorporation of ...

Central Saint Martins College, MA in Fine Art, graduation 2009

Byam Shaw School of Art, Postgraduate Degree in Fine Art, graduation 2008

Crawford College of Art and Design, Higher Degree in Fine Arts, 1st. Class Honours, graduation 2005

Gentle & Violent, Solo Exhibition of new work supported by Arts Council England, Nunnery Gallery, London, September 2020

Photographic Works selected for the Thamesmead Festival, Lakeside Centre, July 2019

TQAF What is Eros?, Group Show, MoMus Experimental Centre, Thessaloniki, June 2019

Perception Exhibition, MFR19 Festival, Rome, March 2019

DD#10 – Flash in the Pan, Dead Darlings Live Art Auction, Amsterdam, December 2018

Art & Fashion Pop-Up BOXPARK Shoreditch, London, September 2018

Objects of Desire, Solo Exhibition, Tsuru+Lim, Redchurch Street, London, November 2016

Livid and Hairy, A Mixed Print Show Curated By LIK+NEON, People’s Park Tavern, Victoria Park Road, London, October 2016

Bow Open Show 2016, group show selected by guest curator Anj Smith, Nunnery Gallery, Bow, London, June 2016

Anthology: Black/Ivory/Memorabilia, Joint exhibition with Meiko Kikuta, Tsuru + Lim, Redchurch Street, London, 2015

Pop Saints and Sinners and Other Stories, group exhibition, 69 Camden High Street, London, January 2015

On Transience, Solo Exhibition, Hackney Picturehouse, London, July 2014

Vanquished by Love, Solo Exhibition, Maison Bertaux, 28 Greek Street, Soho London, April/May 2013

Art & Style, Di...