Harry de Vries is an artist and writer based on Gadigal and Wangal land in Sydney, Australia. His creative practice is situated in the tension between the material of daily life and simulacra; props, replicas, poor imitations, and objects which have no referent in the 'real' world.  He examines cultural phenomena through their material artefacts- often forgotten as active agents in the maintenance of culture and power.

Objects are brought into the studio and extended through processes of replication, casting, or reproduction, before being returned into the 'real world' as installations alongside found objects. 

His particular concerns relate to the substructures of our colonial past, and how material legacies of European colonisation might let us access the immaterial, cloud-based manifestations of power in the contemporary world. 

The resulting work undermines the necessity of everyday life and generates a kind of 'thin place' where new ways of being in and seeing the world are possible.

He holds a BfA and MfA from the National Art School, Sydney, where in 2021 he was awarded the Clitheroe Scholarship and the Brandon Trakman Prize, and in 2023, the British School at Rome Residency Award. He has exhibited in numerous group shows in Sydney and abroad. In 2024 He was a co-director on the board 2024 of Schmick Contemporary, an artist-run initiative in Haymarket, New South Wales.

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