edward bagenal

Born in Southampton in October 1976, state educated, I attended the Surrey Institute of Art and Design before moving to London to complete a BA in Design at Goldsmiths College. On graduation, I worked in the research arm of a technology company for one year. I then completed an MA in Design at the Royal College of Art. I am now a practicing artist with an interest in the production of all social artefacts.
Aware of owning a quality of life built on the extracted wealth and suffering of a large number of other people, I am trying to exorcise the demons that this realization has spawned. I consciously try to attack and destroy my own bourgeois sensibilities in my work. I can not, however, avoid making work that also celebrates these sensibilities. The aim of the attack is to regain affinity with people excluded from this system, but often the resulting work alienates all groups concerned.  Any work that helps to dissolve social structures and meta-narratives on which class and wealth hierarchy are built, or the tastes that symbolize status within them inspire me. People like Paul McCarthy, Mike Kelly, Jeff Koons, Guy Debord and Bob and Roberta Smith. I also love painters in the same vein. Michael Borreman, Jenny Saville, Neo Rauch and Viktor Man. 
1996-2000 Goldsmiths College (Ba Design),Royal College of Art (MA Design Products) 
Lecturer and researcher in design at Goldsmiths college