Mike Smith Studio

02/06/2026

The studio very much enjoyed applying its transferable skills to a wonderful project with Glenn Brown for his exhibition Grottoesque at no. 1 Royal Crescent in Bath. We produced the frames from rolled and welded aluminium section, combined with composites. These were then encrusted with shells to a specific pattern. The encrusted frames were produced in halves for transport and installation which was handled by the studio.

18/01/2026

The studio worked with David Thorpe to produce ‘End Paper and Book Ends’ for Futurecity at Marketplace in central London. It consists of three works based on the history of the area. Inside are two pieces which involved bonding 17,000 laser cut pieces of leather in five colours to Corian panels in a repeating pattern.

One of Corian panels by the elevators is in sections and internally illuminated. The other work was to devise a panelling system to fix hand made encaustic ceramic tiles in alcoves to the outside of the building.

The 1000 tiles were made by Jason Marks.

14/09/2025

The studio enjoyed the opportunity to work with to produce the display cabinets and archive storage units they designed for .ensemble . These were used to present the archive celebrating thirty years of the Clod Ensemble with their exhibition How it Moves at the studio.

03/01/2025

Mike Smith Studio was very pleased to work on this amazing project - House 8 - with . We produced and installed the bronze cladding to the rear elevation, including the oriel windows and dormer. Thank you to everyone involved. Wishing you all a very Happy and Prosperous 2025.

07/10/2024

REPOST from

It was lovely to see Tania’s post. This was one of the most enjoyable artworks that the studio produced. It was a very significant project.

Visited an old friend last week, or is it better to call it part of me, I’m not sure what to call a work from a while back - at London.

I was part of a panel discussion celebrating The River by .winderen - which is a new powerfully immersive site specific sound work for the Jerwood Gallery, made from sound she has recorded from inside the River Thames. It is a magnificent work and asks for that rewards surrendering to the complex acoustic world of the river. Hugh congratulations to her on this beautiful new work.

I so enjoyed hearing Jana describe her creative process; and felt very lucky to have been given the opportunity to discuss my own experiences of listening to water. Our conversation was soaked in a watery understanding.

The event also celebrated the visionary and buoyant strategic partnership between Reading University and the NHM.

TREE was a commission I won to mark the bi-centenary of Charles Darwin’s birth, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his ‘Origin of the Species’. His theory of evolution ruptured orthodox thinking and remains one of our best ever ideas to help make sense of who we are and where do we come from.

It was such an important artwork for my own evolution as an artist. I also like knowing it will long outlive me. I remember saying at the time to my eight year old son - ‘you can take your grandchildren to see this!’ I know this exclamation is so full of assumptions, and that I should never have said it, but sometimes I give myself over to the illusion of permanence and continuity.

‘The River’ is free to immerse yourself in till end of January 2025.

TREE is in the Treasure’s Gallery ceiling.
I see water in my work even when it isn’t fully present, as TREE seems to flow like a river to me.

07/07/2024

This was a great project for the studio working with the NOW Gallery Team, Mat from CAN and John Booth.

Up in Smoke was a big build for the confines of the 7 meter tall gallery and the four structures were prefabricated offsite and assembled in the gallery space.

First three images:

18/10/2022

The studio was delighted to work with on their exhibition Human Stories curated by . Working with exhibition designers on producing six different structures, a frame, a tiered plinth and temporary wall units for the six artists that can be recycled afterwards.

Artists featured
1. Stephen Tayo .tayo and Leonard Suryajaya
2. From front , left, back, right: Thy Tran , Stephen Tayo .tayo, Thandiwe Muriu ,Leonard Suryajaya
3. Thy Tran , Nyugen Smith

Great to wrok with Team NOW

13/08/2022

The Future Flower installation stands 14 metres tall, and the ‘petals’ are 4.5 metres in diameter. As the wind speed and direction changes, so does the intensity of the red lights colouring the flower. Each set of lights is connected to one of the small turbines on the ‘stem’ of the flower.

It is made from galvanised steel, and was made in our West London studio before being transported to Widnes where a small team of our staff installed it on the riverbank.

This piece was created with to create a large scale public art piece for Widnes Waterfront.

26/07/2022

The brief for this project was to work closely with British Airways, Troika to develop the form which would be the ‘Cloud’, to produce the object and then install it within the space above the escalators at T5 at Heathrow Airport, London. This involved some considerable thought as there were many constraints to fulfill. The skin had to be populated with the 4800 discs which form the animated surface. The interior of the form needed to contain all of the hardware and wiring to control the movement of the discs. The discs needed to be removable from the outside for maintenance. The surface of the skin needed to be as seamless as possible. The solution was to build a form from CNC machined strips of aluminum which were welded into the form of the cloud, each location of every disc was also cut in the surface to enable the correct location of the discs which are individually controlled. It was a great project to produce and the result look quite effortless.

14/07/2022