BIO & CV
Callum Diffey (b.1997) is a multi-disciplinary artist currently based in Glasgow. His practice utilises analogue photography, sculpture, performance, installation, digital media, and video.
The core of his practice is that of an archivist. Lifelong projects such as “The Diary Project”, an autobiographical photography series, and “Unedited Output”, a time-based performance work that also functions as a therapeutic tool, form the foundation of his practice. “Unedited Output” uses a thermal printer to produce text, photographs, and digital screenshots in real time from whichever device is at hand, exorcising thoughts and ideas without resolution. While distinct, these works exist symbiotically, informing the more formal photographic and sculptural outputs.
Conceptually, Callum’s work toes the line between sensitivity and brutality, exploring dichotomies of pain and pleasure, the sacred and the profane, and collective memory and trauma. Themes of identity and the beauty found in the debased are a constant source of interrogation. Opposing ideas and emotions coexist simultaneously. The work operates in extremes and ambivalence.
Visually, his practice references motifs drawn from religion, pornography, and queer and internet subcultures. He explores nostalgia and authenticity within photography, examining how images function as evidence, memory, or fiction. This includes photographing domestic spaces such as homes for sale where death has occurred, treating absence itself as a subject. The body is treated as an object and site of projection, stripped of fixed personal identity. Sculptural works echo the conceptual and visual language of the photographic practice, while video is often used as documentation of performance, exploring how moving image can be consumed as a physical object.
Callum’s work becomes a collage of symbols that resists fixed interpretation, creating situations in which everyday objects and familiar imagery are altered or detached from their original context. The personal becomes universal. There is no solution in the work. It is observation.
BA (Hons) Fine Art (photography), The Glasgow School of Art (2021)
The Society of Scottish Artists New Graduate Award (2021)
ABOUT://44 @ The Glasgow School of Art, 2017
Make Equality Happen for Stonewall @ Out of The Blue, Edinburgh 2017
IMG_021 @ 16 Nicholson Street, Glasgow 2018
Rooted @ Where People Sleep, Glasgow 2018
Grab the Beehive, Cut it in Half, Lick the Honey @ Wasps Artists Studios, Glasgow 2019
Film Screening @ CCA, Glasgow 2020
Goose Chase @ House for an Art Lover, Glasgow 2020
The Glasgow School of Art Degree Show 2021 (online) 2021
The Alternative Degree Show Festival @ French Street, Glasgow 2021
Vice x Photobook Cafe Student Open Call @ Photobook Cafe, London 2021
The Society of Scottish Artists 123rd Annual Exhibition @ RSA Upper Galleries, Edinburgh 2021
Gulabi Photo 4th Birthday Group Show @ Outlier, Glasgow 2023
Context 2025 @ Filter Space, Chicago, 2025
Naughty Market, Berlin, 2025
Flesh & Form @ MRKT Gallery, Berlin, 2025
Visiting Hour, Guest Artist @ Transmission, Glasgow 2024
Hart Magazine
Babestation - Page 3
The Society of Scottish Artists
The Scottish Artists Union
Transmission Gallery
Streetlevel Photoworks
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