Michael Connolly (British, b. 1981) is an artist and creative director based in the United Kingdom whose generative art practice takes a machine-based approach to concrete art.Working with code, he explores line, form, and color through randomness constrained within parameters he defines himself.
Connolly was born in Leeds, England, in 1981.He trained in graphic design at the Bradford School of Art, graduating in 2007.While at college he became interested in the relationship between sound and image. For his final degree project he used the Processing programming language to create an audio-responsive installation and a series of prints based on recordings of the gallery space. After graduating he worked as a graphic designer before moving into web, motion, and interaction design, and later co-owned a motion design studio working commercially with advertising agencies and production companies.
In 2020 he began exploring NFTs as an additional outlet alongside his freelance motion design work. He then discovered Art Blocks as a way to release generative projects, after being accepted onto the KnownOrigin platform and setting up on OpenSea to release larger curated collections of his code-based work. His first on-chain project, Elementals, released on Art Blocks Curated in 2021, drew on physical printmaking techniques and the Bauhaus design movement, particularly Wassily Kandinsky's teaching on the relationship between form and color.Elementals was longlisted for the 2021 Lumen Prize.,He has since released further generative series including Mantle, Repeater, and Divisions, the latter through Art Blocks Presents.His work has since been shown in exhibitions including “Companions of Code” at Elsewhere.art in New York and London in 2023, curated by Micol Ap, and “Singularity” at the Decentral Art Pavilion in Venice in 2022.
