Michael Porter

Michael works from his studio in Newlyn, Cornwall, and spends much of his time walking the coastal paths, taking photographs and collecting natural ephemera as source material for his studio paintings. His artworks are drawn from the minutiae of our environment, from a single pebble embedded in the ground, to an autumn leaf drifting across a body of water, to a tangle of twigs and branches against the gathering dusk. His technical proficiency and his experimental approach to building the image have made him one of the UK’s most respected and high-profile artists, known for combining a form of unfiltered realism with a unique approach to composition and scale. 

Michael was born and raised in the rugged and beautiful landscape of Derbyshire in 1948, and went on to study at Nottingham College of Art and Derby College of Art, before completing undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Chelsea School of Art. He became a Fellow of Gloucestershire College of Art in 1973 and worked at his East London studio for more than twenty years before moving to Cornwall in 1997. He has received numerous major awards including the National Gallery Artist-in-Residence award, the London University Lorne Award, the RWA Odin Award, an Honorary Doctorate from Derby University, and more recently an Honorary Fellowship of University College Falmouth.