“It’s very personal.”
We met British painter Mike Silva, whose works recall silent, intimate moments of the past.
“For me, the photograph is a kind of armature or anchor to make a painting that’s authentic for me.”
Mike Silva paints portraits, interiors, and still lives that are intimately connected to personal memory. Working from photographs taken on film and archived over the years, mostly of his acquaintances, friends, lovers, and the environments they once communally inhabited, the artist creates a tender sense of celebration tinted with melancholy.
Rooted in the London of the ‘90s or early ‘00s, many of the images Silva paints from carry the allure of the innate beauty of youth, as well as the inherent sadness of a moment captured in a photograph that no longer exists. Whilst the painting of the photographs is a way of remembering, they are also cathartically about letting go.
Silva’s interiors or domestic spaces expose quietly observed moments, such as when light hits a particular wall or floor of a shared bedroom, kitchen, or living room — evoking a feeling of nostalgia or longing for places that were inhabited only for brief periods. Using white generously in the painting process offers a milky or hazy quality to the paintings, perhaps a reflection on the ungraspable and transient nature of past memories.
”I’m so conscious of time. This painting of Jason asleep and this painting of a hotel room, there is a 30-year gap between them, but they both exist in the present tense. Painting is like an opportunity to really look at something, someone, to encounter colors that perhaps you would never even consider using.”
Mike Silva (b. 1970, Sandviken, Sweden) lives and works in London. His work is held in major public collections including Tate, the British Council, the Government Art Collection, the Jerwood Collection, the University of Warwick Art Collection, and the Laing Art Gallery.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Interiors, Galleri Bo Bjerggaard, Copenhagen, DK (2026); Landscapes, Anton Kern, New York, US; Mike Silva, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, UK (both 2025); Mike Silva, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, UK (2024); New Paintings, The Approach, London, UK (2023); Portraits and Interiors, Anton Kern, New York, US (2022). Selected group exhibitions include: SALON, Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore, Co. Waterford, IE (2026); Yay, to have a mouth!, Rose Easton/Ginny on Frederick, London, UK; I thought, I had lost half a soul here, Meyer Riegger, Berlin, DE (both 2025); The Shape of Things: Still Life in Britain, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK (2024); Dream and Refuge – Works from the Jerwood Collection, Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2023); Friends & Lovers, FLAG Art Foundation, New York, US (2023); The Triumph of Painting, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2006)
Mike Silva was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner in connection with the opening of the exhibition Interiors at Gallery Bo Bjerggaard in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conversation took place in May 2026.
Camera: Jarl Therkelsen Kaldan
Edited by: Jarl Therkelsen Kaldan
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026
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