Bio/CV
Mike Perry’s photographs examine the interactions of landscapes, nature and industrial society. Over the last 20 years his practice has focused on Britain’s national parks and increasingly the immediate surroundings of Pembrokeshire where he lives and works, questioning the romantic mythology of national parks as areas of wilderness and natural beauty. He uses large format photography in order to simultaneously capture the painterly tones and aesthetic qualities of the landscape’s surface while detailing the impacts of humanity’s exploitation of nature for commercial gains. His series of smaller photographs show objects found in the landscape at 1:1 scale, capturing the effect of natural processes on the surfaces of industrially produced materials. In these images the objects become poignant symbols of the entanglement – both literal and metaphorical – of human consumption, waste and nature. At a time when climate breakdown & ecological collapse coexists with a global pandemic that draws attention to the importance of the natural world to human physical and mental wellbeing, his work could hardly be more resonant.
Perry’s work has been exhibited at National Museum Wales (2012,16), The Royal Academy of Arts (2014,18), the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and Foundling Museum (2016). In 2017 he was included in the British Arts Council Collection exhibition British Landscape and The Imagination at Towner Art Gallery. His solo exhibition Land/Sea received Arts Council Wales touring funds and travelled between Plymouth Arts Centre, Ffotogallery, Mostyn and Aberystwyth Arts Centre during 2017-18, and will open at Thelma Hulbert Gallery and National Museum Wales’s Oriel y Parc in 2021. Perry was awarded a Creative Wales Award in 2015 and represented Wales at the 2018 Interceltique Arts Festival in Lorient, France.
Mike Perry has a post graduate degree in economics, has worked with Greenpeace, was a founding director of the green energy firm solarcentury. In 2005, he was invited to the first Tipping Point symposium on climate change between leading scientists and artists at Oxford University and in 2015 presented to the Treasury on climate change action with economist Nicholas Stern and artists Antony Gormley and Cornelia Parker. He is currently in the process of rewilding a small holding in West Wales.
Solo Exhibitions
2021 – National Museum Wales, Oriel y Parc, Wales. March 2021
2021 – Thelma Hulbert Gallery, England. August 21, 2021 more
2020 – The Forum, Exeter University April 24 – July 9 2020 (postponed)
2019 – Untitled, Studio, Ffynnonofi, Pembrokeshire, Wales more
2018 – Land/Sea (Tir/Môr), Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales more
2018 – Land/Sea (Tir/Môr), Interceltique Festival Lorient, France more
2018 – Land/Sea(Tir/Môr), Mostyn Gallery, Wales more
2017 – Land/Sea (Tir/Môr), Ffotogallery Touring Exhibition, England and Wales more
2017 – Land/Sea (Tir/Môr), Plymouth Arts Centre more
2015 – Artist in Residence exhibition, National Museum Wales at Oriel Y Parc, Wales more
2013 – Môr Plastig at ICIA, Institute For Contemporary and Interdisciplinary Arts, England more
2007 – Inland, The Photographers’ Gallery, London more
2005 – Landscape, Galerie Trabant, Vienna, Austria
2004 – Beach, The Photographers’ Gallery, London more
Group Exhibitions
2018 – Art Made Now, Royal Academy of Arts 250th Summer Exhibition. Invited artist, Gallery VIII more
2017 – British Arts Council Partner Exhibition. British Landscape and the Imagination: 1970s to Now, Towner Art Gallery, England more
2016 – The Colour Of The Earth: Art and the Material Landscape. National Museum Wales more
2016 – Sea Fever, De Queeste Art, Belgium. Collaboration with Bruno Van Dijck, Philip Gross…. more
2016 – Llanw Plas Glyn-y-Weddw, Wales, with Alex Duncan, supported by Welsh Arts Council more
2016 – Found, Foundling Museum, London. Inc. Tacita Dean, Jeremy Deller, Antony Gormley… more
2015 – Vita Vitale, exhibition at 56th Venice Biennale 2015, created by International Dialogue for Environmental Action more
2015 – Future Fossils, curated Yulia Topchiy and Tess Thackara, Dutton, New York more
2014 – The Black & White Room curated by Cornelia Parker at The Royal Academy of Arts, London more
2014 – ‘Here Today…’, Old Sorting Office, London, including Gavin Turk, Tracey Emin, Peter Blake… more
2014 – Didn’t We Have A Lovely Time, The Photographers’ Gallery, London more
2013 – Môr Plastig, Contemporary Arts Exhibition, National Eisteddfod of Wales more
2012 – New Ground: Landscape Art in Wales since 1970, National Museum Of Wales more
2012 – Unseen, Westergafabriek, Amsterdam, The Photographers’ Gallery, London more
2012 – Oriel Davies Open, Môr Plastig, Oriel Davies Gallery, Powys, Wales more
2011 – The Earth Only Endures, The Photographers’ Gallery at Stone Theatre, London more
2009 – HHA competition and competition, Christie’s, London. Winner Best Picture more
2009 – British Landscape Photography, curated by The Photographers’ Gallery, London more
2008 – Ecology and Art, The Royal Society for the Arts, London more
2008 – Oasis, Gana Art, Seoul, Korea more
2007 – Transition Gallery, London
2005 – Landscape, 5th International Photo Festival, Seoul, Korea
2005 – Photo London, Royal Academy. Abereiddi series, showcased by The Photographers’ Gallery
2004 – Paris Photo, Carousel De Louvre, The Photographers’ Gallery
2004 – Group show at Transition Gallery, London as part of E9 project more
2004 – Photo London. Royal Academy. Exhibited by The Photographers Gallery
2003 – Robert Sandleson Gallery, London, curated by Tom Morton of Frieze Magazine
Awards / Commissions
2018 – Chosen to showcase Wales at the Interceltique Arts Festival, Lorient, France
2017 – Land/Sea, Touring Solo Exhibition curated by Ffotogallery, sponsored by Arts Council Wales
2015 – Creative Wales Award, awarded by Arts Council Wales more
2015 – Coastal Currents Artist in Residence at Oriel Y Parc/National Museum of Wales more
2014 – Arts Council Wales, Research Residency, Elan Valley Project
2009 – Christies HHA Commission, Winner Best Picture more
2007 – BBC 4 Arts Television. Featured Artist in documentary, Britain In Pictures
2002 – Commissioned by NextLevel Magazine for Breaking Oil, text by Bianca Jagger
2002 – Astral America Project Commissioned by Prada/Huntergather with Tom Hunter more
Publications
2017 – British Journal of Photography – online, Cross, Rannoch Moor, Scotland, 2009 more
2017 – Metamodernism Performatist Photography: Experiencing Beauty and Transcendence after Postmodernism
by Raul Eshelman, pp191-194 more
2017 – Chiaroscuro Magazine, Fine Art Exhibition Review more
2017 – Land/Sea exhibition catalogue published by Ffotogallery, edited by David Drake. Printed by Industria Grafica SIZ
2015 – CCQ Magazine, Issue 7, p62-p65 – Something Rich and Strange, interview with Emma Geliot on Venice Biennale more
2015 – Irenebrination, Human Debris and Flip-Flops Archives: Mike Perry’s ‘Môr Plastig’ at Venice Biennale
2013 – ICIA Exhibition Catalogue – Môr Plastig: introduction by Lindsay Hughes more
2013 – Skye Sherwin Review – Môr Plastig more
2009 – Exhibition Catalogue – The Earth Only Endures, words by Skye Sherwin more
2009 – NextLevel – Collectors Issue, In Conversation with Charles Dunstone, Edition 19 more
2009 – Next Level Magazine, September 2009, Below The Surface, feature
2009 – Gaia Magazine, September 2009 Germany, Front Cover, Beach 17 more
2009 – Greenpeace Magazine, July 20019, centre spread, Germany, Beach 9 more
2006 – The Poacher, Art Portfolio, GQ more
2005 – Abereiddi, by Craig Burnett, NextLevel Magazine more
2004 – Grand Canyon Forest. Article by Tom Morton in NextLevel Magazine, November 2004 more
2004 – Art Review Magazine. Beach 17, featured as part of review of Photo London, May 2004 more
2004 – Dazed & Confused Magazine. Page article and review of Beach work, May 2004
2004 – GREAT, The photographers’ Gallery Publication, Preview of April show, 2004
2004 – Arena Magazine. Feature on Beach and review of book, March 2004
2003 – Beach, essay by Craig Burnett, London: NextLevel and Thames & Hudson more
2003 – Cactus photograph published in NextLevel. as part of End Of Imagination article by Arundhati Roy, March 2003 more
2003 – Frankfurter Rundschau. Review of Abereiddi and Beach book, December 2003 more
2002 – Breaking Oil, ‘US Flag’, NextLevel Magazine, text by Bianca Jagger more
2002 – Front cover and 4 page editorial in first issue of NextLevel, February 2002 more