Michael Pemberton (b. 1974) is a British artist, painter. He lives and works in Paris. 

 

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 Mayfair, 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 shows in 2021, 2022, 2023  in galleries in London, Paris and Mexico City.

 

Today, Michael Pemberton paints self-invented works inhabiting imaginary surroundings obliquely influenced by the outside world we experience. Though centered on humans and their activity, the diverse and challenging narratives exist with conflicts and links to other themes, stories, codes and motifs. 

 

Michael Pemberton attended Chelsea School of Art in London (1992 - 1993). He completed painting programs at UCLA, Los Angeles (2003); Ruskin School, University of Oxford (2015); and The Slade School of Art, University of London (2016).