TALKS | Toby Paterson, Art in the City at Arnolfini

A event held at Arnolfini on Wednesday 7th November. The event starts at 18:30.


Award winning artist Toby Paterson is concerned with the post-war reinvention of cities under the influence of Modernism and what the cultural outcome of that influence has been. Living and working in Glasgow, a city at the heart of the British experience of this phenomenon, his continuing engagement with this perpetually changing context has informed his consideration of the spaces we inhabit.

Paterson is a painter whose work responds to both the contemporary form and the historical layers of the built environment; the architectural and spatial experience of cities. His practice encompasses gallery and museum exhibitions, temporary and permanent public commissions and cross-disciplinary collaborations.

In this talk, Paterson will share insights about the range of approaches he adopts through focusing on a selection of diverse public realm projects, each of which helped to form his approach delivering numerous integrated works for his recent Bristol project “A Shift in Perspective” commissioned by PONY at Minerva Primary Academy in Hillfields.



Toby Paterson (b1974, Glasgow, GB) is an artist whose installations of painting and sculpture in galleries, museums and public space allude to existing sites, aestheticized approaches to the construction of architectural space and the social and political motivations responsible for creating the built environment. Paterson studied at Glasgow School of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Recent solo exhibitions include those at Le Grand Café, Saint Nazaire (2012); Galerie Lang + Pult, Zürich (2013); Galeria Mario Sequeira in Braga, Portugal (2013); a Scotland-wide solo touring exhibition as part of Generation (2014); Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop (2015) and at Civic House, Glasgow as part of 2018’s Glasgow International festival. Collaborations include a multi-disciplinary project with the Scottish Ensemble in Glasgow (2014); at the 2014 Venice Architectural Biennale in association with Reiach and Hall Architects and a two-person exhibition with works by Victor Pasmore at Durham Art Gallery (2012). Group exhibitions include those at Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2012) and at the Hayward Gallery, London (2015).

Permanent public works have been commissioned for BBC Scotland’s headquarters in Glasgow (2007), Warwick University (2008), and in the South West area of The Hague (2013). Paterson has also developed expansive works for the Docklands Light Railway’s Stratford International Extension in London (2012) and in Dunfermline town centre in Fife (2014). His Hatton Gallery Pavilion toured public sites in Newcastle and Gateshead in 2017. In 2002 Paterson won the Beck’s Futures Prize and in 2006 a Creative Scotland Award.

Entry requirements: