Robert Montgomery

Born in 1972, Robert Montgomery lives and works in London. He follows a tradition of conceptual art and stands out by bringing a poetic voice to the discourse of text art. Robert Montgomery creates billboard poems, light pieces, fire poems, woodcuts and watercolors.

He was the British artist selected for Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2012 and the Yinchuan Biennale in 2016. Montgomery has had solo exhibitions in Europe, the US and Asia, including major installation works at the site of the old Tempelhof Airport in Berlin and a solo exhibition at the Cer Modern Museum in Ankara in 2015.

In 2016 he presented new outdoor works at the Anglet Biennale in France, The Crystal Ship Festival in Belgium, the NuArt Festival in Norway, and Cardiff Contemporary in Wales. He was recently featured in the BBC4 documentary “Who’s Afraid of Conceptual Art”. In November 2016 he was announced as a shortlisted artist for the National Holocaust Memorial in London.

«To encounter the work of Robert Montgomery is to make a tender encounter whose tenderness is enhanced by the public, communal quality of his work. To encounter his work is to have your body filled with a sad thunder and your head filled with a sad light. He is a complete artist and works in language, light, paper, space. He engages completely with the urban world with a translucent poetry. His work arrives at us through a kind of lucid social violence. No one has blended language, form and light in such a direct way.»

Dane Weatherman, Black & Blue Journal.