Mike Hewson (b. 1985, Ōtepoti Dunedin) is an artist with a background in structural engineering and heavy-civil construction as well as socially oriented art practice. From his base on Gadigal Land in Sydney, he creates projects that merge art, play, risk and social encounter in the public realm.
Hewson wants to prove that we can, in fact, do things that are considered untenable in a public setting. His sensibly strange and risk-positive installations engage with the politics and ethics of public space, inviting reflection on our movement through the world and the structures that populate it.
Permanent public commissions include Rocks On Wheels, Southbank, Melbourne, 2022; Pockets Park, Leichhardt, Sydney, 2022; St Peters Fences, St Peters, Sydney, 2020; Lawson Poole Block Stack, Cranbourne, Melbourne, 2019; and Placed Illawarra Landscape, Wollongong, New South Wales, 2018. Other public artworks include 125th Broadway, Harlem, New York, 2015–ongoing; Dim Mirror, Pushkin Square, Moscow, 2015; Skybridge, Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand, 2014; and It Holds Up, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2013.
Hewson received a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Civil Engineering from the University of Canterbury, Ōtautahi Christchurch, in 2007 and a Master of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) from Columbia University, New York, in 2016.