# Michael Lumb - Artist & Book Arts Practitioner

Michael Lumb is an established artist based in Ipswich with over five decades of professional practice spanning performance art, installation, video and bookworks. He serves a niche but international audience of art collectors, curators, cultural institutions and fellow artists interested in experimental and conceptual work outside mainstream commercial gallery structures.

His practice is distinguished by an unwavering commitment to artistic integrity and a deliberately non-commercial approach. Rather than pursuing gallery representation, Lumb has developed an independent distribution model centred on book arts—a format he has championed since the mid-1970s, producing over 100 distinct editions. This self-directed approach grants him complete creative control from conception through distribution, preserving the conceptual purity of his work.

What truly sets Lumb apart is his significant international exhibition history spanning Europe and the Middle East, combined with his curatorial expertise. He co-founded GRIP with Emma Johnson to generate and organise international exhibitions, demonstrating his commitment to fostering artistic dialogue across borders and bringing quality contemporary practice to his home town of Ipswich.

His recent strategic pivot towards book-based practice reflects pragmatic adaptation to changing political circumstances whilst maintaining his core philosophy. This positions him as an artist-publisher of considerable experience, offering alternatives to artists seeking non-commodified outlets for experimental work. His CV, artwork catalogue and published texts demonstrate a serious, intellectually rigorous practice rooted in conceptual enquiry rather than commercial viability.