" Toby Messenger's work is, for the most part, unpopulated, but he tackles landscape at a tangent... In works made on daily walks... always along the same route, he is looking from the corner of his eye, turning his attention to the forms and spaces others might miss - he sees the curve of a roundabout, or the gap in a fence, ignoring grand architecture, blind to sweeping vistas. These are drawings of the spaces that enter memory, but are never remembered; the spaces, perhaps, that reveal more about a place than we realise. " Jack Mottram, 2005.

http://artnews.org/tobymessenger

Born in Birmingham, 1976. Studied painting BA at the Glasgow School of Art between 1996 and 2000.

Group shows include 'in-between' inter/media Glasgow 2005, 'Flat/Space' Babel Trondheim Norway 2007, The Aspect Painting Prize finalists show The Gallery Cork St London 2009, 'The Painted Image' House for an Art Lover Glasgow 2009, and 'Hell for Leather' Glasgow Project Room 2009. Recently shortlisted (second round) for The John Moores Painting Prize Exhibiton 2010 The Walker Gallery Liverpool.

Solo Shows include 'Freedom No.5' The Glasgow Art Club 2007.

Artist in residence at Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder, Trondheim Norway in 2007, and at Hospitalfield House, Arbroath, Scotland in 2006 and 2008. Public art collections include Oya Helsehus Norway. I set up additional studios at Glasgow Independent Studios in 2001. 

Bibliography

21/03/09- Aspect Prize 'Artist Profile'. The Glasgow Herald
2007 - 'Babel 2007' - publication of LKV annual residency exhibition progam
22/12/07 'With A Hint of Munch' ('Med en anelse Munch') Review in 'Udresleavifen'. Heidi Oliv Wollamo.

Dec 2007 'Intimate Meditations'. Kristin Mandt Heim 
July 2005 'In-Between' Exhibition Review The List. Alexander Kennedy

June 2005 'In-Between' Essay (Jackie Anderson and Toby Messenger). Jack Mottram