Paul Tecklenberg’s practice involves the play between 2D and 3D, object and image. His art is about concepts, ideas, materials and language. Through the process of making, he gets insights and he discovers what the work is about.
His work draws upon science, environmental issues, mysticism, maps, microscopic imagery, perception, and linguistics. He uses found objects to make photograms, casts, and assemblages.
He studied sculpture at Nottingham Trent University and a master’s at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL. He was taught by Tim Head, John Hilliard and Bruce McLean. Shortly after graduating, he co-curated ‘DIY 19 Variations on the Theme of Wallpaper’ with Melissa Alley. The exhibition was reviewed in Time Out, Metro, Vogue Italia and was listed by Time Out as one of the top ten exhibitions in London during 2000. He has consistently had solo shows in the UK including Bodies and Anti-bodies in Nottingham which made the Guardian’s critics choice top five exhibitions in the UK list.
In 2008 he was elected a life member of the London Group. He has participated in more than 50 exhibitions with the group in the UK, Holland, Italy and the USA, four of which, he curated. Paul has exhibited with CentralBooking NYC, an organisation dedicated to promoting art and science. He was in ‘Now You See It…’, ‘Color & The Mind’s Eye’, ‘Earth Works’, ‘Attract/Repel’, ‘Chemical reaction’, ‘Anatomical/Microbial/Microcosms’ and ‘Art &Science’. He also took part in an artist-in-residence in 2022, at the New York Historical Society which lead onto an exhibited in Red Hook, Brooklyn, ‘On the Waterfront: A view from the Coast Line.
He was the first artist-in-residence at the Swedenborg Society, and he made work in response to the writings of Emmanuel Swedenborg, a scientist and mystic, which lead onto a solo show called ’21 grams’.
Paul has exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and 2019 in shows with the full backing on the British Council. In 2020, his sculpture ‘Magnetic North’ was selected by Richard Deacon RA for the Royal Academy Summer show and the following year, Eve Rothschild RA selected ‘Jacob’s Ladder’. Paul was elected a member of theRoyal Society of British Sculptors in 2021 and has had sculptures selected in their summer shows in 2022, 2023,2024 and 2025. Paul has shown with commercial galleries including England & Co, Flowers and Patrick Heide Gallery and he has work in private collections in the U.K., Belgium, Holland, France, Italy, Germany, U.S.A,Brazil, Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa and Japan.
The core of Paul Tecklenberg’s work is the play between 2D and 3D, object and image. His art is about concepts, ideas, materials and language, but he is not really a conceptual artist because he is inspired by chance, delving into the subconscious and many of his pieces have their origins in lucid dreaming. Through the process of making, he gets insights and he discovers what the work is about.Paul Tecklenberg has played with a dialogue between 2D and 3D since he was a student at Trent, Nottingham and the Slade. His practice is inspired by chance, the subconscious, lucid dreaming, and random thoughts. His work draws upon science, environmental issues, mysticism, maps, microscopic imagery, perception, and linguistics. He uses found objects to make photograms, casts, and assemblages.
At the heart of Paul Tecklenberg’s work is a play between objects and images, concepts, ideas, materials and language. He is not really a conceptual artist because he is inspired by chance; he delves into the subconscious and many of his pieces have their origins in lucid dreaming. Through the process of making, he gets insights and he discovers what the work is about. There are often tensions contained in his work. For instance, with ‘In your shoes’,there is something beautiful and tender in the way he reveals the inside of a shoe and yet it is brutal as steel rebar penetrate through the heels and toes of concrete casts. They are static and yet he has depicted motion and movement. He used concrete and steel as a catalyst to open-up deeper vanes of thought and emotion.
