Biography
Working primarily with cardboard, recycled wood, and household materials, he constructs scaled replicas of everyday objects - cars, bikes, bedroom DJ rigs - that channel a spirit of DIY ingenuity and cultural critique.
Rooted in the aesthetics of rave culture and a nostalgic fascination with the motor car, Messenger's lo-fi constructions celebrate the studio as a space of making, memory, and quiet resistance. Beneath their playful surfaces, the works often reflect on wider systems of collapse, consumption, and disillusionment - transforming overlooked materials into playful, poignant monuments to a pre-digital world; Curator Kate Holford remarks,
"Despite their self-confessed 'lo-fi' style, there is a specificity that resists any urge to not take them seriously. Within their cardboard bellies, their nearly-bucket-seated centres; in their gesture toward whole machines known with such intimacy - out there at rallies, on driveways, on website listings... a sense of regret? of failure? of disillusionment? Something niggles. Perhaps it's that collapse encircling. It's certainly The Strait of Hormuz, the horror around which we must bear witness to and resist."
Drawing remains central to his practice: closely observed studies of urban spaces, objects, and environments echo the tactile immediacy of his sculptural work. Across media, Messenger explores the creative potential of what's at hand - improvisational yet intentional, rough-edged yet deeply considered.
Messenger studied Fine Art (Painting) at The Glasgow School of Art and has exhibited widely across the UK and internationally. Most recently his solo and collaborative projects include include Drive at PAPPLE, East Lothian (2026), and his solo show 'Systems in Collapse' at Boardroom Committee Room, Govan Glasgow in April 2026 - hoisting half-scale vehicles up three floors directly into the exhibition space. Documentation can be viewed here and was featured on Glasgow Art Map Journal.
In early 2025, Messenger was artist-in-residence at Shapeero-Murray, where he produced a site-specific, performative 1:1 scale sculpture of a Formula 1 car. In 2024, he participated in I Hear a New World at Villa Stuck, Munich, curated by Markus and Micha Acher (The Notwist / Alien Disko Records) and Anne Marr, alongside international artists from Germany, Japan and the UK.
Previous shows include Turning Up in a Tiger Suit at a Techno Party (The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow), The Effects of Good and Bad Government, Crash n' Burn, and The Psychopathology of Everyday Life at Glasgow Project Room, as well as Freedom No.5 at Glasgow Art Club (RGI Fellowship Award) and Flat/Space at Babelkunst in Trondheim, Norway. In 2008–09, he was a finalist in The Aspect Painting Prize, exhibiting at Gallery 28 Cork Street, London.
Messenger has curated four large group exhibitions under the moniker From the Big Splash to the Last Splash at Terrace (London) and IOTA (Glasgow) in 2023, and SPACE JUNK at Strange-Field (Glasgow) in 2024 - each showcasing cross-generational artists in expansive, DIY-spirited formats. A fourth show 'New Waves' is currently on at T R A N S M I S S I O N Glasgow from Saturday 6th to Sunday 14th June as part of the Glasgow International fringe events programme.
Earlier in his career, Toby Messenger played a key role in the organisation and construction of new studio facilities for Glasgow Independent Studios at 48 King Street in 2001.
Residencies include a three-month Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW) residency at Hospitalfield House in 2006 (with a return alumni residency in 2008), and a residency at Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder in Trondheim in 2007.
In June 2026, he will co collaborate with Vox Liminis on a participatory project involving people on day release and individuals with lived experience of imprisonment connected to HMP Barlinnie, which will culminate in the creation of new site-specific work. In September 2026, IOTA (Glasgow) welcomes Messenger back for his solo exhibition Road to Nowhere - showing selected drawings from the past two decades alongside recent sculptural work
His work has been featured in Glasgow Art Map, The Skinny, The Glasgow Herald, and The List.