The Smith Residency is a residency for a visual artist and recent graduate of either The Glasgow School of Art, Goldsmiths University of London, or University of the Arts London.

René Lazový (b. 1998, Bratislava) is a Slovak artist based in London whose multidisciplinary practice spans photography, sculpture, painting, installation and drawing. His work explores the relationship between human perception and the material world, often engaging with contemporary philosophy, ecology, technology, identity, migration and the legacies of post-socialist experience.

Lazový holds a BA in Photography and New Media from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava and an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, which he completed in 2024. His work has been exhibited internationally, including solo and group presentations in London, Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia and Venice.

Recent projects include Assigned Identity, a ongoing exhibition project examining diasporic experience and hybrid identity, and Tears, a sculptural work investigating the discrepancy between everyday perception and the physical reality of natural phenomena. His practice is informed by philosophical and ecological thought, particularly questions surrounding the Anthropocene, archives, materiality and the limits of human knowledge.

Currently, Lazový is developing his studio practice at Florence Trust in London, producing a new body of work responding to the Anthropocene, dark ecology and an uncertain environmental future. Through painting, sculpture, drawing and photography, he investigates changing relationships between humans, technology and the non-human world, exploring how material forms can reflect en

Previous Smith Residencies were awarded to Tamsin MacArthur in 2024 and Anouk Verviers in 2025. We are very grateful to Cove Park Patrons, the Smith family, for making this programme possible.