Fine art and fine writing are the grains of Toby Christian’s creative practice. Precise and objective, his artworks can be seen as post-modern dérives; close readings which position a viewer, a reader, in new emotive proximities with the ‘stuff’ of his subject matter—be this the arbitrary and mundane or the antiquated museological.

Select works

exhibitions and projects

Up the Beanstalk presents Stressing Commuters, 2023
Institute of Contemporary Arts London (UK)

For Stressing Commuters, Up the Beanstalk responds to Commuters (Koenig Books 2021), the latest published book by artist and writer Toby Christian. Written with Christian’s trademark detail, the text tilts between the headspaces of guided meditation and hyper-forensic rave.

Up the Beanstalk – using the Commuters text as a source – bring their distorted worldbuilding style to imagine a new transmission featuring readings and contributions from Pops Roberts, Johanna Hedva, Chiorstaidh Black, Setrus, Esther Dillner, Stuart McKenzie and Toby Christian. Presented in a custom installation in the ICA Theatre, they invite the audience to become enveloped in the sound of Stressing Commuters.
-performance text, 2023 

listen to the NTS recording here

no odonata, 2023
Belmacz, London (UK)

Moonlit glimpses, intruding shadows. Delicate moments rendered in dust. Toby Christian’s solo exhibition at Belmacz, no odonata, brings together a series of iPhone photographs taken by the artist while looking in through the window of his studio-garage in Lewisham. These small giclée prints not only chart the passing of days and weeks – a labour of stone carving – but hold within their grain multiple dimensions and points of view. Here, looking – looking out, in, at and beyond – is produced with gestural sojourns of light and shadow.
—exhibition text , 2023

Lazy Bones, 2021
Casanova, São Paulo (Brazil)

Comprising a series of new stone carvings on display at the gallery, and a public, outdoor text installation in the Jardim district (São Paulo, Brazil), the exhibition extends the dynamic and reciprocal nature between Christian’s writing and sculpture.
[…]
Christian’s new stone sculptures consider the formal and ergonomic potentials for mass produced remote devices. Continuing an ongoing range of small-scale works (2015-) that address objects designed to fit our hands and bodies, these mute sculptures, whose pliable functions are removed, are sites for the imagination of new transmissions and choreographies for the hand.
—exhibition text, 2019

Old School New Body, 2019
Celine, Glasgow (UK)

A series of paper sculptures populates the main gallery space. The knotted, skeletal figures are constituted of free daily newspapers collected by the artist while travelling around London in the months prior to the exhibition. Remodelling the knotted papers that mapped the walls of his previous exhibition The News, the sculptures are titled to propose temporary instances of creativity (maker), packaging (shrinker), headlining (streamer), celebration (nicotine pompom) and sustenance (chip poker). Braced by a spontaneous armature of bamboo skewers, bent steel clips and sealant, these jagged networks abridge each article into clusters of words and splashes of colour.
—exhibition text, 2019

Trippy Scroller, 2018
PEER, London (UK)

Through the live animation of drawn and written string characters, Toby Christian’s Trippy Scroller reimagines the form of the scroll, extending the artists recurring string motif, through the use of domestic archival apparatus. A laminator is remodelled to drive a roll of ersatz-celluloid over the lens of an outmoded overhead projector, creating a slow moving animated procession of frozen string shapes, secluded in their pouches. This long sequence of interrelated forms has been carefully arranged by the artist to explore figurative, linguistic and political registers of cotton string, and integrates examples of string figures, some of the oldest recorded storytelling devices in human history.
—exhibition text, 2017

The News, 2017
David Dale Gallery, Glasgow (UK) and Swimming Pool, Sofia (Bulgaria)

“I have a strong memory of my mum teaching me how to make a good fire. We would sit together tying knots of newspaper, and see who could make them the quickest. I remember noticing that my
hands were much smaller than hers. We couldn’t use newspapers that were from that day, or the day before that, or the day before that, but it was ok to burn any newspapers older than that, as their news wasn’t news any longer.”
—Toby Christian, 2017

Pedestrian Confetti, 2015
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Leeds (UK)

This solo exhibition consisted of a life-size, to scale model of a paved street, around which 3000 leaves of blank A4 pastel-colored paper was blown by a number of reclaimed desk fans.
—exhibition text, 2015

The Plastically Parotting, 2014
Intermedia, CCA Glasgow, Glasgow (UK)

“Now, a blunt hooked shut beak is held here, lodged in a draughty gap between two long floorboards that are nailed, painted, and spattered with spirits. Outstretched wings point proudly, gesticulating skywards… Dotted eyes stare sideways…”

In his latest exhibition, featuring all new work, Toby Christian transforms our Intermedia Gallery into an immersive installation site, with text and interactive concrete sculpture located under a newly created ceiling. The Plastically Parroting was designed specifically for Intermedia, responding directly and creatively to the space, and is composed of as-yet unseen pieces.
—exhibition text, 2014

The Tread and the Rise, 2013
Baró, Sao Paulo (Brazil)

Of words and reconstituted remnants. In artworks created in Brazil, Toby Christian dismantles language and reassembles it under numerous perspectives
[…]
Made with an impressive quantity of paper waste (part of which was brought by the artist from London), these new pieces by Christian assume a concrete texture, resembling small-scale architectural models. Through their analogy to fragments of typography, they suggest the dismantlement of the notion of words – raised portions and fragments of letters allow for a reorganization of meaning, and invite one to read what might be unreadable. Results nurture a surprising elegance, and the montage as a unique installation, arranged on walls based on the layout of the artist’s residence in London, interrupts and guides the viewing of the artworks.
—exhibition text, 2013

Panel pieces made from chalk, string, water, oil and paint surround this large-scale installation. These works have evolved from a series of improvised blackboards used in the artist’s studio to make notes and sketches. They are presented as erased remnants of past notation.
—exhibition text, 2013

A Belgian Fence, 2013
RH Contemporary Art, New York (USA)

Toby Christian’s mixed-media floor pieces are created in direct conversation with his environment. His current series explores architectural forms based on the exploded geometric shapes found somewhere between the sole of a shoe and the repeating geometric patterns in ceramic-tiled floors or mosaics. Christian’s large wall-based panels, constructed with chalk, string and paint on board, connect his exploration of the relationships between objects and spaces to the transformative potency of text.
—gallery text, 2013

Untitled (Caltrop), 2012
Royal Academy Schools Graduation Exhibition,

Royal Academy, London (UK)

“Toby Christian’s work is often difficult to spot, with ‘real world’ objects being twisted and remade in ways that prompt the audience to question whether they are actually part of the show. In fact, it prompts us to question the notion of a show all together. He’s a recent graduate of the RA and a mighty talent that I anticipate big things for in the not-so-distant future.”
—Gavin Turk, 2012

editions

publications

Commuters, 2021

Publisher: Koenig Books
ISBN: 9783753301068
Format: softback
Dimensions:  198mm x 129mm, 132 pp

Collar, 2017

Publisher: Koenig Books
ISBN: 9783960980865
Format: softback
Dimensions:  180mm x 110mmm, 104 pp

Measures, 2013

Publisher: Koenig Books
ISBN: 9783863354220
Format: softback
Dimensions:  190mm x 130mm, 96 pp

press and media

Image as language | review by Shin Hui Lee, 2023

Bruised Stones | text by George Vasey, 2019

Toby Christian | interview with Max Slaven, 2017

Gavin Turk Selects | feature Dazed, 2012

24 Artists to Watch | feature in Modern Painters, 2012

Unseen Blows | review by Amy Sherlock, 2012

Artist biography

Toby Christian (b. 1983, Boston, Lincolnshire, UK) studied at Wimbledon College of Art, London before completing his postgraduate training at the Royal Academy Schools in 2012, where he was awarded the Gold Medal.

Select exhibitions include: no odonata, Belmacz, London, UK (2023); Interpolations II, Galerija Prozori, Zagreb, Croatia (2022); Lazy Bones, Casanova, São Paulo, Brazil (2021); Derma, an online exhibition, Baró Galeria, Palma, Spain (2020); Der Bote ist der Tote, Mauve, Vienna, Austria (2020); Burners, Alessandro Albanese, Milan, Italy, (2019); Old School New Body, Gallery Celine, Glasgow, UK (2019); Parallel Vienna, with Judith Leupi, presented by Gallery Celine, Glasgow, UK (2018); Mantel, Copperfield Gallery, London, UK (2018); The News, curated by David Dale Gallery, Glasgow, for Swimming Pool, Sofia, Bulgaria (2017); Quiz 2, MUDAM, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg (2016); Pedestrian Confetti, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, Leeds, UK (2015); A Bunch of Keys, nam Project, Milan, Italy (2015); The Plastically Parroting, Intermedia, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, UK (2014); A Belgian Fence, RH Contemporary Art, New York, USA (2014); The Tread and the Rise, Baró Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil (2013); Drawing Biennial 2013, The Drawing Room, London, UK (2013); Unseen Blows, Seventeen, London, UK (2012); Aspiration Factory, Aeroplastics Contemporary, Brussels, Belgium (2012); Transcending, LARM Galleri, Copenhagen, Denmark (2010); Psychedelia Paradise, Galerie D’Art Contemporain, Toulouse, France (2009); Stage Hands, Fold Gallery, London, UK (2009).

To date, Toby has published three books: Commuters, Koenig Books (2021); Collar, Koenig Books (2017); Measures, Koenig Books (2013). His writing has also been published internationally via platforms such as Parrhesiades, This Long Century and Art Licks.

Toby lives and works in London, where he is a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, London (UK).