Born in Pinneberg, Germany (1974) Thyra studied fine arts (painting and photography) at the University of Applied Sciences and Art in Hannover under Peter Tuma (1996-2000). After a guest residence at the Hiroshima City University, Japan (1999-2000), she frequented the University of Art (HBK) in Braunschweig under Dörte Eißfeldt (2000-2001). From 2001 to 2005, she was student at the Academy of Fine Arts Düsseldorf, in the class of Thomas Ruff.
Together with other students of Thomas Ruff, she founded the artist group FEHLSTELLE in 2003, which realised art-projects in public space until 2012 in Germany and abroad. Thyra’s individual works are sometimes situated in public space like “I can’t just be nowhere” in cooperation with the Goethe-Institute in Oslo, Norway and “Staccato” for the Kunstverein Paderborn, Germany.
Besides photography, Thyra already started in 2007 to experiment with scripture. For her participation at the “Congress of Futurologists” in Eisenhüttenstadt, Germany, she asked people to write words or small sentences on paper provided by her. Since this time, she reflects on images that are formed by writings. For “I can’t just be nowhere” in Oslo she combined text and photo. The texts were quotes by different authors, partly modified by her.
Progressively, Thyra evolved from her initially mostly photo-based works to text dominated. In her solo exhibition in 2015 “Blaue T-Shirts, Jeans und Turnschuhe” (Blue T-shirts, Jeans and Trainers) at Martin Leyer-Pritzkow, Düsseldorf, there were seven texts and only two photos. As supplement to the exhibition, the artist published in 2017 a small book including new works of the series from 2016. Therein are five photos and thirteen texts, all by herself. The arrangement of the words indicates how the sentence should be read, with breaks for dwell time. Moreover, these texts can be received as abstract pictures, especially for non-German speakers and particularly for people who cannot read Latin letters.
During her artist residence in Hongcheon in 2017, South Korea, Thyra created a work, once again a text. Since it was exposed at the façade of the Hongcheon Art Museum, it was translated into Korean. For the average western onlooker, who cannot read the letters the abstraction is evident. 두 친구가 그 방을 떠난다. 그리고 다른 길로 걸어간다 (Two friends leave the room and walk in different directions) was our artwork of the month of October 2017.
In 2019, Thyra edited her artist book “Über Diebe und die Liebe. On Thieves and Love.” with an English translation by Enrico Nake, published by the edition cantz. For this, she transformed the typographic sheets from her exhibition “Über Diebe und die Liebe” at Neuer Kunstverein Wuppertal into a hardcover. By the insertion of blank pages, she extended the gaps created by the layout of the text.
In her solo exhibition “Rendezvous” at Martin Leyer-Pritzkow in Düsseldorf (2020), Thyra presented several flower still-lifes and one typographic sheet. Whereas her solo show “innen inside intérieur”, at the Künstlerloge Ratingen (2021) consisted of a text in three parts, which was originally composed in German and translated into English and French and printed on separated sheets.
Thyra’s works were shown in numerous individual and group exhibitions in Germany and other countries such as the Netherlands, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, China and the United States. She recently participated in group shows as “Pictured as a Poem” at KAI 10|Arthena Foundation, “the kitchen happening” by artist Judith Samen and “Sehnsucht nach dem Jetzt” (Longing for the Now), Part III at Weltkunstzimmer, all in Düsseldorf (2021). Besides, she taught artistic photography at the University of Cologne from 2015 until 2017 and initialised with Hannes Norberg the platform for artistic photography “Neue Fotografie” in Düsseldorf in 2017. Moreover, she was awarded with several grants and artist in residencies in Germany and abroad. Additionally, she curated exhibitions and published artist books by herself and in collaboration with other creatives.
Thyra lives and works in Düsseldorf.
Thyra Schmidt: Über Diebe und die Liebe. On Thieves and Love.