Simeon Barclay (b.1975, Huddersfield, UK) spent his formative years during the 90s employed as a machine operative whilst being submerged in the transformative potential of clubs, music, fashion and youth culture movements across the world. Channeling those alternative modes of expression, he would later attend night school, finally graduating in (2014) with an MFA from Goldsmiths College. Barclays practice spans sculpture, installation, sound, performance, and writing. Drawing on his own personal history, popular culture, fashion and design, he creates environments where the personal meets the social, and the emotional connects with the architectural. He reshapes and collides these references, often with humour, to explore the complex and contradictory narratives that shape the modern British experience. Barclay has been nominated for the 2026 Turner Prize which will be held at MIMA in autumn 2026, he is the recent recipient of the Kenneth Armitage Sculpture Fellowship; the Roberts Institute of Art, Practicing Performance Commission; Ares Art Award and was included in the Heywood Gallery Touring exhibition; British Art Show 9. Barclay lives and works between West Yorkshire & London.
