Above: 'A Studio Tour with Barry Sykes' - a film by LOK Films, November 2024
ABOUT*
Barry Sykes (born 1976, Essex, lives and works in Walthamstow, London) makes drawings, sculptures and events that unpick our relationships to pleasure, value and participation. Using instinctive, imprecise, often absurd methods, he devises games, processes and lesson plans that ask us to reflect on how we interact and understand ourselves. Often working at the edges of value, skill and acceptable behaviour, recent activity has looked at how we channel these concerns through our bodies, in experiments with laughter, stillness, exercise and relaxation.
Often acting as a host, guide or teacher, recent projects in 2024/5 have been developed for various organisations including Roger Ascham Primary School, London; Focal Point Gallery, Southend; Goldsmith's College, London and The Together Space disability charity.
*Regularly rewritten and archived. This version 27/12/2024.
EMAIL: contactbarrysykes(at)gmail.com
PRESS
“(His works) are as witty and pithy as any fable, but without the overt links to morality, they covertly revise the way we engage and assess any situation (...) If there were any overt point or truth to these works it is Sykes' engagement with others as a stark refusal to settle for essentialism, in any form. Rather each work becomes an amalgamation of each person's subjective experience, habits and techniques (...) A work like the Dad Directives or The Ongoing Song reveals the limits and impossibility of objectivity, and the dialectic of power and control for artists working today who engage in collaboration, or even more loosely as an artist.”
-Dani Admiss, ArtRabbit.com
“Barry Sykes's life as an artist has taken him down some offbeat, and perhaps not strictly legal, avenues. His artworks-cum-social experiments include impersonating a part-time police community support officer and replicating/ripping off work by such strange bedfellows as romantic minimalist Cerith Wyn Evans and painter Karel Appel. He's even got his dad to realise work for him, as with a series of photos carried out according to his instructions. Trust, originality and morality rank among this trickster's quarry, in projects that unpick what goes on behind the scenes in art.”
-Skye Sherwin, The Guardian, UK
“Stuck for things to do and waiting for latex to dry, I went to the Arts Centre to find some inspiration. Barry Sykes is the resident artist and he was awful, worse than Gilbert and George and that last video installation of a woman smashing a bike with a baseball bat. Why would you want to re-enact being a PCSO?! What's the point? Or am I missing the point?”
-Hannah Helmsley, hannahhemsley.blog.com
CODE OF CONDUCT*
I am currently focussed on making my working practices as responsible as possible. Finding this also leads to more surprising, interesting, valuable outcomes:
- Inclusion. When invited to participate in a project, I will be asking about the diversity of other participants, suggesting credible, talented alternatives if needed, or turning the opportunity down. Likewise when considering who I want to invite to work with me.
- Sustainability. In my studio and public practice I always consider the footprint of the materials I am working with, where possible restricting this to biodegradable, recyclable products. I also aim to limit the use of new materials wherever possible, using up scraps and offcuts or salvaged material. Resourcefullness as an essential form of inquiry.
- Accessibility. Projects I participate in should make efforts to be both as physically and digitally accessible as possible, Stating details of this provision in any marketing material and contact details to liaise with. Documentation should also be accessible.
*Continually revised and rewritten. This version 26/12/2024
BONUS CONTENT.
>> 'Laughter! Trust! Failure! And Other Feedback Loops', artist talk, School of Arts, University of Worcester.
>> The handbook for my Sauna Reading Group.
>> Buy Issue #3 of Hamam magazine, featuring an 8 page profile of my work.
>> 'Why Don't you Try Laughter Yoga?', lockdown YouTube workshops for Focal Point Gallery.
>> 5 min speed lecture on my work for my residency at University of Bath..
>> In Conversation with Edwin Burdis, Arnolfini, via This is Tomorrow.
>> Interview with Yvette Gresle on FAD.
>> Exhibitions of the Week, The Guardian, by Skye Sherwin.
>> My music video for Astronauts 'Only Son'.
>> My previous collaboration with Sean Parfitt, 2000-06.
>> The British Sauna Society, of which I'm a founder member and current Artist in Residence.
