Congratulations to Harald Smykla, winner of the 2022 Brewers Towner Award!
Posted on 24 October 2022Brewers Towner International is an open call exhibition of contemporary art, featuring a range of artists, local, national and international, coming together to share work which addresses the theme of SANCTUARY.
The Brewers Towner Award of £10,000, sponsored by Brewers Decorator Centres, has been given to one of the exhibiting artists alongside mentoring from the Towner team. The winner of this prestigious award has been announced as Harald Smykla.
Photo by James Bellorini
Harald Smykla studied painting/printmaking at Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Art (Germany). Based in London since 1988, his practice evolved into merging unorthodox notions of drawing and other traditional media with performative and participatory strategies, exploring contexts of place and time, materiality, process and interaction. His practice of social engagement in the public realm – especially through street market projects - involves people of all backgrounds as incidental audiences and active participants, e.g. in acts of 're-facing' banknotes, produce-based chess games, collective cardiography, research into art and emotion, dental sculpting, hand-drawn projection mapping and other approaches to artistic interaction with the public.
His current studio practice is focused on 'rewilding' press images by revealing underlying pictorial life forms and such transformations imply various political readings. In particular, press photos that illustrate the ongoing tensions / conflict between Islamist extremism and Western secularism are 'defused' by being converted into floral imagery (Iconoclash Press Flowers): By following classic Islamic art rules rejecting the human image, violent ideological bravado is subverted, and victim exposure reversed.
He said, “Being selected for the Brewers Towner International and winning this award has given me a strong sense of validation of my current art practice - especially after the dearth of opportunities to present work 'in real life' during the pandemic.”
Harald Smykla, Iconoclash Press Flowers: Forced to flee, 2021. Photo: Harald Smykla.
Brewers Towner International has been curated by Noelle Collins, Exhibitions & Offsite Curator, Towner Eastbourne. She says of the winner, “We are delighted to announce that Harald Smylka has won this year’s Brewers Towner Award. His convincing and direct work appeals to us all, and is highly accessible whilst remaining complex. The London based, German artist makes images which ‘rewild’ press images, providing respite from the 'bad news’ in the form of colour and texture. The exhibiting artists this year were of a fantastic caliber, and Harald’s work in particular was appropriate to our theme of SANCTUARY.”
See the exhibition for free at Towner until 22 January 2023.