Michael Pemberton (b. 1974, UK) is an artist, painter.

 

Over a twenty-year painting career, Pemberton has had group and solo exhibitions in galleries in London, Paris, Los Angeles, Mexico City and Vancouver.

​

The first twelve years of Pemberton’s practice was largely abstract investigations. Concerns about climate change in 2003 led to his first solo exhibition of paintings, The Toxic Series, in 2006 in London.

​

Over the subsequent ten years, Pemberton lived and worked in New York and Los Angeles. He explored questions of internal and external journeys, ambiguity and indefinability. These investigations resulted in abstract paintings on canvas and works on paper. Solo and group exhibitions of this work were held in 2016, 2017, 2018 at galleries in Los Angeles and Vancouver.

​

In 2018, Pemberton addressed physical human form in his work. He aimed to bring about a sensation of human believability and interpretable feeling in the imaginary works, yet avoiding the interference of realism. The resulting works on canvas and paper were grouped into four successive series and shown at solo and group exhibitions in 2021, 2022, 2023 in galleries in Paris, Mexico City & London. In 2023, solo exhibition in London The Age of Water catalogue essay was written by a curator at Tate.

​

Today, Michael Pemberton paints self-invented works inhabiting imaginary surroundings obliquely influenced by the outside world we experience as a personal commentary of our present age. Though centered on humans and their activity, the diverse and challenging narratives exist with conflicts and links to other themes, motifs and mix art historical references.

​

Michael Pemberton was educated in Fine Arts at Chelsea School of Art, London, and furthered his studies at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College of London.