Biography

Michael Dwan is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice engages with themes of mortality, memory, belonging and time, reconciling the autobiographical with the collective through work grounded in photography. Whilst the image remains central, he investigates the medium’s potential beyond the representational, distinguishing between ‘reality’ as the observable world and ‘real’ as a deeper, subjective truth.

A period of unlearning at the RCA marked the beginning of a shift towards abstraction, allegory, and performance. Seeking to move beyond the traditional limits of the photographic apparatus, he began working across media. These include photogrammetry, printmaking, moving image, painting, and sculptural form: each is employed to extend symbolic resonance and material presence.

Michael is currently developing work that extends Continuum, an ongoing exploration of ancestral connection across deep time. Informed by research in environmental history, his practice increasingly considers landscapes as living archives, where ecological and cultural memory coexist. Through engagements with Ireland's temperate rainforests and other layered environments, he examines continuity and rupture, exploring how these sacral environments preserve traces of memory, belief and biodiversity, and how acts of restoration might reconnect present communities with inherited histories.

From Ireland, Michael has spent much of his life abroad, primarily in the United States and Britain, where he built a creative career in brand advertising before returning to fine art practice. He holds an MA from the Royal College of Art London and an MBA from the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.

Curriculum Vitae

Exhibitions

2026 – Curator Selection Exhibition, Watson Farley & Williams (WFW), London (nine-month exhibition)

2025 – Dublin Art Book Fair (DABF), Continuum publication, selected by the curators. Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin

2025 – Travers Smith Art Programme (twelve-month exhibition and new work commissioned)

2025 – Another Shore exhibition, Artat111 Contemporary Gallery, Highbury, London

2025 – RCA Arts and Humanities public exhibition, London

2024 – RCA Open Studio shows. White City and Battersea, London

2024 – Cosán (film screening), selected for BBC Artist Showcase ‘Big Screen’ event at Television Centre, London

Awards & Features

2026 – Longlisted, Aesthetica Art Prize (Top 5% of global submissions)

2025 – Featured Artist, Source.ie Graduate Photography Online

Collections & Archives

Travers Smith Permanent Art Collection, London

Biblioteka Art Reference Library, Continuum publication, London

Private Collections, UK and Ireland

Education & Professional

2023–2025 – MA, Royal College of Art (RCA), London

2022 & prior – Commercial career; creative roles across technology, media, and advertising sectors, and related education