A Real Kind of Fiction | A Solo Exhibition by Michael Agnew RSA

In association with the 200th Anniversary of the Royal Scottish Academy
Friday 18 September 2026 to Sunday 24 January 2027
Michael Agnew RSA is a Scottish artist based in Aberdeen. Working mainly in collage, printmaking, drawing, painting and water-based media. His work often explores ideas concerning collective memory and the emblematic traditions in and of Scotland, through the lens of storytelling and exploring the potential of the visual dynamic. His practice celebrates layered meanings and histories to produce contemporary outputs applying a sustainable agenda and focus.
Agnew investigates visualising stories and narratives focusing on a sense of place, identity, histories, print ephemera, mythology, folklore, apocrypha amongst others. Becoming fixated with making the same idea repeatedly, obsessively looking for different and new iterations or other interpretations of a known subject.
This exhibition at the gallery at Linlithgow Burgh Halls will host both retrospective and more recent works, showing the artists long term focus on meaning and process. Capturing the energy and emotion of 'Anima Mundi' as reflected in the image of the owl as archetype, alongside other subtle and overt critiques of the contemporary world of 'fast media.' The themes of transfiguration and anthropomorphism, the human face into animal, asks us to reflect on the layers of possible meaning. What are the connections to the global traditions of print making, influence and inspiration? From the repetition of the image of the owl found in the artworks of the far north regions by the Inuit artists such as Seelaki Kenojuak, to Picasso's many iterations of the owl as inspiration. Within the undertones of his work, you can feel the sustained love of teaching and the sharing visual art knowledge with new students and emerging artists. Agnew's own language is always keeping "one's art practice as a living example".
He describes his work as being a "collision and collusion between cultures, histories and identities to propagate new narratives, contexts and artefacts.' I constantly revisit and add and review my ideas. They are built up and erased over time to evidence layered surfaces as I reveal the archaeology of my making. I am fascinated by Primitivism, Outsider Art and Folk Art as catalysts for my creative visual language."
Printmaker, painter, draughtsman and teacher, born in Bellshill, Lanarkshire. Agnew studied Fine Art at Gray's School of Art, Aberdeen (1986-90). He then went on to undertake a Masters in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art (1990-92) and is currently the Course Leader in Fine Art at Gray's. Agnew was elected a Royal Scottish Academician in 2008. Agnew has exhibited both nationally and internationally, and has work in private and public collections including, Aberdeen Art Gallery, the Royal Scottish Academy, Robert Gordon University Heritage Collection and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Michael Agnew. RSA. MA(RCA) Course Leader in Fine Art, Gray's School of Art
Image: Three Owls for Megan Boyd. Water based media on cotton rag paper. Drawing/Painting