Jake Garfield (b. 1990, London) is a British contemporary artist working across printmaking, drawing and painting, whose practice interrogates the nature of images, artifice, and selfhood. Emerging from a strong academic and institutional background, Garfield has established himself as a distinctive voice within contemporary British printmaking, exhibiting widely in the UK and internationally while securing acquisitions by major public collections.
Garfield studied BA Fine Art Painting at the University of Brighton, where he first encountered printmaking through the influence of painter and printmaker Tom Hammick. This early exposure proved formative, leading to a deeper engagement with woodcut, lithography and etching processes during a pivotal exchange at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He subsequently undertook postgraduate training at the Royal Drawing School (Postgraduate Diploma, 2013) before completing an MA in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art. These institutions—central to the UK’s academic art ecosystem—provided Garfield with both technical rigour and conceptual grounding, shaping a practice rooted in drawing as a primary mode of thinking.
Garfield’s work is characterised by a sustained inquiry into the relationship between image and reality. Recurring motifs such as mirrors, masks, theatrical figures, and images-within-images create layered visual systems that destabilise perception and question authorship. His compositions frequently depict figures engaged in acts of looking, making, or performing, situating the viewer within a recursive dialogue about representation itself. Drawing on both art-historical references and contemporary visual culture, his practice reflects a sophisticated engagement with the mechanics of image production and reception.
Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2016, Garfield has built an active exhibition profile across commercial galleries, institutions and art fairs. Early in his career, he presented The Real Thing (2018), a solo exhibition at Mercer Chance, London, which explored cinematic imagery and the instability of representation through layered printmaking techniques. His work has also been shown at Christie’s (London and New York), El Segundo Museum of Art (California), and Mercer Chance Gallery, reflecting an international reach early in his career.
More recently, Garfield has exhibited at leading UK institutions including the Royal Drawing School, Fitzwilliam Museum, Pallant House Gallery, and Somerset House, demonstrating increasing institutional recognition. His 2025 solo exhibition Man Holding a Snake at 8 Holland Street, London, presented new works from his ongoing series The Boxer, engaging in dialogue with art-historical precedents such as Pierre Bonnard’s self-portrait Le Boxeur. The exhibition explored themes of masculinity, artistic struggle, and vulnerability through a dynamic range of scales and media.
Garfield’s work has also appeared in curated exhibitions such as Contemporary Collecting: David Hockney to Cornelia Parker at the British Museum (2024), where his woodcut Private View (2021) was included. Such placements situate his practice within broader narratives of contemporary British art, aligning him with established figures while highlighting his contribution to current dialogues in printmaking and figurative art.
In addition to exhibitions, Garfield has participated in residencies that have informed his technical and conceptual development. Notable residencies include El Segundo Museum of Art (California), Rush Arts (New York), and Dumfries House (Scotland), each contributing to his exploration of print processes and cross-cultural artistic exchange. His engagement with master printers and international studios has reinforced a commitment to material experimentation and process-driven practice.
Garfield’s achievements have been recognised through several awards, including the Printmaker’s Council Award (2016), the Durham Wharf Award (2015), and the Royal Drawing School Printmaking Prize (2013). These accolades underscore both technical excellence and conceptual innovation within his field.
His work is held in significant public and private collections, marking a key indicator of professional standing. Institutional acquisitions include the British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), Royal Collection, Fitzwilliam Museum, and Pallant House Gallery. The presence of his work in these collections situates Garfield within a lineage of artists contributing to the evolution of British printmaking and contemporary figurative practice.
Alongside his studio practice, Garfield maintains a pedagogical role as a tutor associated with the Royal Drawing School, reflecting his ongoing engagement with drawing as both discipline and methodology. This dual position—as both practitioner and educator—reinforces the centrality of drawing within his work and its importance as a foundational tool in contemporary art education.
Garfield currently lives and works in London, where he continues to expand his practice across media, incorporating painting and installation alongside traditional printmaking. His recent work demonstrates an increasing willingness to push beyond technical comfort zones, engaging with scale, material hybridity, and painterly approaches while maintaining a conceptual focus on perception and representation.
Positioned at the intersection of tradition and experimentation, Jake Garfield’s practice reflects a rigorous engagement with the history of art alongside a contemporary interrogation of image culture. Through exhibitions, institutional recognition, and inclusion in major collections, he has established a growing professional profile, contributing to ongoing dialogues around figuration, authorship, and the ontology of images in the 21st century.
