ABOUT

LabelsOnHumans aka Michael Bradbury is a self-taught digital artist working with abstraction and photography. After a lifetime of art-making and study that always ran parallel to random acts of paid employment, Michael relocated to London where he now devotes most of his time to the creation of digital art.

He attempts to merge the organic process of art creation with the digital technology of production to explore his sense of self by developing a personal digital aesthetic of optimism, beauty and harmony. 

Rather than just using the technology as a digital surface on which to to draw and paint, Michael uses the editing tools and functions to create a new vernacular.

A sense of optimism emerged whilst confronting a serious illness and it’s this optimism that Michael’s Art wants to communicate. A standpoint arrived at through studies in Vedanta Philosophy which became a source of hope, exploring the concepts that transcend every day life to address more existential, metaphysical issues. Philosophy hints at what is beyond words so the immaterialism of pixels is perfect for exploring the inability of words to fully express a feeling. 

Striations, pixelation and digital compression are evidence of  bricolage, left visible intentionally. They represent those lovely human imperfections, visible means of production. An equivalent of the brush stroke. The more Michael embraces these imperfections the more they have come to represent the temporal nature of human life and the beautiful aesthetics of time.

The work is informed by a life-long fascination with art history, visual culture of all kinds and a back ground in furniture design.  For Michael, over time the function of objects became increasingly irrelevant in the objects he produced, leading to a focus solely on the emotional and psychological resonance of creating something worth looking at.

‘I have painted, made sculpture and collage but it is digital art and photography that I feel I came home to. ‘I make digital art, not because of any technical know-how, far from it. I simply started using the ubiquitous technology that was lying around in daily life. In this sense I feel connected to folk/outsider artists who find self expression in the off-cuts of wood or remnants of fabric that they have in their own back yard. Responding to a simple need to create’ 

‘My daily art practice is as important to me as exercise, meditation, study and good food. Without it, I feel less successful at being human. The work is an unconscious response to my preoccupations and interests which include a diverse range of Art and Art-forms, visual imagery and non-fiction literature. From Tantric Painting to advertising spreads, it’s a way of visualising my inner life. The creation of Art is a way for me to embrace contentment. To not endlessly be trapped in wishing for something better and dismissing what I have now.’

Whilst working towards inclusion in group shows and gallery representation, LabelsOnHumans physical and blockchain artwork is available online and can be found in private collections in UK,  Italy and the US. He has gallery representation in Beijing.