Harald Smykla

My work combines offbeat approaches to 'traditional' art-making (drawing, painting, print, object-making) with site-specific installation, performance and socially engaged practice.

I frequently work in the public realm, engaging people from all backgrounds and age groups as incidental audiences and active participants in shared art experiences.

These have included people getting involved in playing Fruit/Veg Chess, re-imaging cash, dental sculpting etc. in street markets (Deptford X, ‘Rogue Trades’ Barking); collective cardiography, researching art and emotion, experiential map-making, ‘psychohistorical’ site-specific performances, drawing films in shorthand, manual projection-mapping, ‘rewilding’ Bad News images and other interrogations of material, image, place, text/context and time.

Having studied in Karlsruhe/Germany (1981-86), I moved to London in 1988 and have performed and exhibited widely in England and abroad since. In 2022 I was awarded the Brewers Towner International Art Prize at Towner Eastbourne.