Tygar Miles Smith (b. 1999) is a visual artist born and bred and in South East London, he studied at Camberwell Foundation before graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2023 with a BA in Fine Art.
The base of his practice comes from the re-contextualisation of his childhood. Struggling to read at a young age Tygar found solitude in Ladybird books. Fast forward 15 years he found a new purpose for them; turning any prepossessed book into a visual reconstruction. With the ambition of creating a life long work Tygar follows two rules ‘a page a day’ and ‘first thought - best thought’. Once one book is reconstructed he moves onto the next; drawing, redacting, cutting, painting, gluing, collaging, adding, subtracting and manipulating text or image that turns not only the whole book itself but each individual page into an art work of their own existence.
Emerging from this ambition are Tygar’s conceptual paintings, a methodical practice that revolves around repurposing found drawings from the past or present into large ambiguous abstract paintings. He works in steps, analysing his studies, figuring out what it will take to turn these ephemeral drawings into prominent paintings. He is confined in his process due to the decisions already being made; colour, content and composition is predetermined. His paintings embody contradiction by appearing to be ‘active’ where in fact they are ‘operative’. Tygar’s paintings go against the grain with his studies being the light at the end of the tunnel— the end already in sight—they are the existence of a meticulous process and a bold choice to re-contextualise and give merit to discarded pictures from the past that become prodigious paintings of the present.
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Group Shows
Vacuum
30th April - 1st May 2021
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Relax
22nd - 24th July 2021
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Slacker + Friends
22nd October 2021
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Live@Livesey
3rd June 2022
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Permanent Temporary
24 - 25th September 2022
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Screen As
13 - 18th June 2023
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Heart Tour
2nd September 2023
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Nice Trash
7 - 10th September 2023
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Momentary Bond
12 - 14th October 2023
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Rapid, Rigid
17 - 20th January 2024
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Look If You Want
2nd - 24th May 2024
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(Actually) Attainable Art Fair
25 - 28th July
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Solo Shows
Redacted
25th - 27th March 2022
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Thank You Very Much Ladybird
18th May - 10th July 2023