An enormous concrete tongue greets visitors approaching the home of Michael Dean. The Newcastle-born artist, whose practice spans poetry, sculpture and assiduous book-making, moved to his Victorian terrace house in Ilford, east London, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and soon set about making the place his own. ‘It’s a great conversation starter,’ he says of the strange appendage, which once formed part of an artwork but now functions as a step-cum-doormat. ‘Delivery drivers and the like will be inquisitive, and we’ll end up talking about art and family and life,’ he adds.
Such a literal nod to language is fitting for an artist who grapples with the malleable nature of the written word. ‘By turning writing into an object, the experience becomes more open,’ he says. ‘It’s less about trying to interpret what Michael Dean the artist is saying, and more about asking yourself: “What happens when I stand in front of this thing that some weird Geordie guy decided to leave behind?”’ This question could just as easily apply to the contents of the artist’s home and studio. Everywhere you turn, objects invite curiosity, be it a bouquet of cement clenched fists, another remnant from one of his sculptures, a petrified loaf of bread, or a plastic memento recalling his two sons as young children.
Although some rooms are effectively zoned for different elements of his practice, the flow between work and life is permeable. ‘I tried to keep some sense of separation for a long time,’ says Dean, ‘but I had to accept that the art always takes over.’ He has an affinity for second-hand pieces; a Victorian dresser rescued from the street now lives in the kitchen, while an array of cracked and blemished delft tiles uncovered at various flea markets forms a splashback behind the hob. Each example reveals his fondness for creative, crafted traces that might otherwise be forgotten. ‘I guess I’m always looking for the palimpsest,’ he explains. ‘Something that has been touched, used and loved over time. You’re looking at it and imagining who else has looked at it – I find that captivating.’
This make-do-and-mend approach was not only one of necessity when times were tough at the outset of his career, but reflects elements of autodidactic labour; although he studied at Goldsmiths, Dean trained himself to fabricate in materials such as concrete and steel (he has since received nominations for both the Turner Prize and the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture). As we enjoy coffee in the kitchen, he reminisces about tearing out the old fitted units and layers of laminate, before hand-pouring and laying tiles of his own design. He also extended the house with a lean-to conservatory, which is used for compiling large-scale works. ‘The good thing about being a self-taught sculptor is that you learn all of these things by accident, in search of conceptual magic.’
Processes of trial and error have cultivated a relaxed approach to his surroundings, particularly as he often brings hulking pieces of sculpture from the garden – where he works in the sunnier months – through a typically narrow Victorian hall and into a more classically stark workspace, adorned with his vast archive of books (he makes one to accompany each of his exhibitions; his most recent, at Herald Street gallery in London, continued his exploration of language in physical form). The risk of damage merely adds texture to the house: ‘If you make a dent or a scratch, it’s part of the patina.’ He proves the point by gesturing to an antique display cabinet on the landing, which once belonged to his mother. It is filled with family votives, including her collection of ceramic houses, and features a cracked pane of glass. ‘The kids introduced that particular intervention,’ he says with a laugh. ‘Bringing up a pair of boys means you learn to hold on tightly and then let go lightly.’
In fact, there are many areas where his children (now in their teens and twenties) have acted as creative co-collaborators. They chose the yolk-yellow shade that floods their shared bedroom, which is seen again on the kitchen ceiling, illuminating similarly sunny pots and pans. According to Dean: ‘They helped me with a lot of the paintwork, which is a great excuse for dodgy edges and interesting brush strokes.’ This joyful approach to decorating is further evidenced by the ‘atomic red’ that adorns the passageway outside the bathroom. It lights up like molten lava when the sun hits it. By contrast, a moody olive-toned exterior paint has been used for the inner living room, creating a cosy space in which to enjoy the newly installed wood burner, where Dean often spends early mornings or late evenings reading.
The visual through-line in this part of the house is one of green and red, which is poignant given that an inability to differentiate between such colours prevented Dean from joining the army aged 16. ‘I went to join up with my mates. Now they’re all gone and I’m not, so that colour blindness saved my life,’ he explains. ‘At that point I went into myself, reading and writing, which led me to where I am now.’
This defining moment is a marker of Dean’s unlikely path into art. Equally unexpected is the Pepto-Bismol-pink shade that coats the entrance hall. When I ask about the saccharine shade, he explains that it pre-dates his arrival. In fact, it flooded much of the house during its former life as an austere, multi-occupancy rental (he posits that such a bizarre colour must have been sold at a heavy discount). He decided to preserve the hallway as an idiosyncratic symbol of recent history, which offers a ghostly trace of all of those former inhabitants. ‘It’s a privilege to have this whole house,’ he says, ‘and it’s something I’ll never take for granted’
A version of this article appears in the May 2026 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers
