More than two decades of practice
brought together in an action-packed show
- you just HAVE TO see this!
PLEIN SOUL brings together new sculptural work alongside a selection of drawings spanning more than two decades, revealing a continuous line of enquiry that has remained at the centre of Toby Messenger's practice.
The exhibition’s title PLEIN SOUL reimagines the tradition of plein air painting by shifting observation from the external landscape to the interior landscape of the studio. Here, the studio becomes a site of sustained looking, experimentation and discovery, where drawing, sculpture and construction are not separate disciplines but interconnected ways of understanding the world through making.
The exhibition traces a journey from observational drawing to sculpture, not as a shift in medium but as an expansion of the same formal concerns. Early drawings made in studios, sketchbooks and during periods of travel, self-imposed isolation and artist residencies in Siena, Málaga and Arbroath sit alongside recent large-scale sculptural constructions, demonstrating how drawing continues to inform Messenger's approach to colour, space, structure and composition.
Constructed from reclaimed timber, cardboard, Perspex, plastic and discarded packaging, the sculptures begin with the familiar outline of the motor car before gradually moving away from representation. Built through improvisation rather than replication, each work develops through an evolving dialogue with its materials, allowing structure, rhythm and accumulated decisions to determine its final form. The recognisable subject becomes a point of departure rather than a destination.
Rooted in the visual language of garages, workshops, scrapyards and consumer waste, Messenger's sculptures transform overlooked materials into constructions that occupy a space between drawing, collage and architecture. Rather than concealing the origins of their materials, they embrace them, allowing previous histories and uses to remain visible within the work. Music has long informed Messenger's practice - not simply as a soundtrack, but as a way of working. The DIY ethos of acid house, with its culture of self-organisation, resourcefulness and creating outside established systems, continues to underpin his approach to making. Like the temporary spaces created through rave culture, the studio becomes a site of experimentation and quiet resistance, where value is generated through sustained attention rather than speed, spectacle or perfection.
As curator Kate Holford has written of Messenger's sculptures - for his show Systems in Collapse at Boardroom Committee Room in April: "Despite their self-confessed 'lo-fi' style, there is a specificity that resists any urge to not take them seriously."
PLEIN SOUL reveals drawing and sculpture not as separate disciplines but as different manifestations of the same enquiry.
Throughout, Messenger explores how familiar forms can be dismantled, reconstructed and reimagined, allowing an internal logic to emerge through the act of making itself.
About the artist
Toby Messenger (b. 1976, Birmingham) lives and works in Glasgow. He studied Fine Art (Painting) at Glasgow School of Art, graduating in 2000. His multidisciplinary practice spans drawing, painting, sculpture and installation, using reclaimed materials to explore themes of observation, improvisation, memory and the built environment.
He has undertaken residencies including Hospitalfield House, Arbroath; Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder, Trondheim; and ‘I Hear a New World’ at Villa Stuck, Munich. Recent exhibitions in 2026 include ‘DRIVE’ at Papple, East Lothian, Systems in Collapse’ at Boardroom Committee Room, and ‘THANK FUCK FOR ARTISTS’ at Tay Street Gallery Edinburgh. He is also the curator of ‘From the Big Splash to the Last Splash’ - an evolving series of peripatetic DIY multi generational group shows, most recently curating NEW WAVES at T R A N S M I S S I O N in June 2026 as part of the GI fringe events program.
Images
• Untitled (Road) - 2006, chalk pastel on paper, 32 x 48 inches
• Systems in Collapse @ Boardroom Committee Room, April 2026
• Audi Qauttro S1, New waves @ Transmission, June 2026