John Beagles is an artist and writer. Since 1996 he has collaborated with Graham Ramsay as Beagles and Ramsay (www.beaglesramsay.co.uk), as well as writing extensively for numerous publications. John studied painting at the Slade School of Art from 1988-1992. He attended the MFA course at Glasgow School of Art from 1994-1996. It was at Glasgow School of Art that he started collaborating with Graham Ramsay.
Research interests
At ECA, since 2001 he has been course organiser for twenty courses on the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, including Contemporary Art in Digital Culture, Popular not Populist, Themes in Contemporary Art and Sound and Vision. From 2014 to 2022 he was the Programme Director for Taught Postgraduate Art and Head of the MFA in Fine Art (2014- 2021), the MA in Fine Art (2014 -2022) and the MA in Art Theory (2014-2017). He has also taught on the MFA at Glasgow School (2001-2006) art and the MFA at Chelsea College of Art (2012 -2013).
As an artist John’s work has been focused on exploring the effects of consumerism, issues around political agency and disenfranchisement and the impact of digital technology. He also has an interest in the potential of playing with habitual ideas central to the mythology of art.
Beagles and Ramsay have exhibited widely both nationally and internationally. In Scotland they have exhibited at Transmission Gallery, Glasgow ("Dub’L introoder" 2001), the Tramway Gallery ("What makes you and I different" 2006), the Fruitmarket ("Evolution isn’t over yet" 1999 and "Poor Things" 2023) and the Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (Running Time 2009). Outside of Scotland they have exhibited at the I.C.A. London (Crash 2000), Venice Biennale (2003) P.S.1 Gallery of Modern Art, New York (2004) and the Migros Museum, Zurich (2005). More recently they had a solo exhibition “NHOTB&RAD” (2023) at the Gallery of Modern Art Glasgow and exhibited their work Sanguis Gratia Artis at the National Portrait Gallery Edinburgh (2024) - this work is part of the collection of the National Gallery of Scotland, while two other works "We are the People" and "Dead of Night" are part of the Gallery of Modern Art Glasgow collection.
There has always been a strong connection between John’s studio practice and his work as a writer. John has written for numerous art magazines Artmonthly, Map and Variant (1997-2012) and B.F.I’s publication Sight and Sound (2012-2024) as well writing numerous catalogue essays for various artists. Between 1998-2001 he worked collaboratively with the writer Dave Beach on a series of essays on the legacy of conceptualism, video art and a critique of cultural studies (published in Variant, Artmonthly and Everything magazine).