John Sharkey was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1936. He immigrated to the UK around 1959 or 1960. Sharkey was active within British concrete poetry and counterculture circles as an artist, writer and organizer. John Sharkey died in England in 2014.
Concrete poet, editor, performer, organiser and writer, John Sharkey was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1936. Although closely associated with some of the most experimental literary and artistic circles in postwar Britain, especially concrete poetry, he remains an elusive figure. He initially enrolled in medical studies in Dublin, before abandoning the course and drifting through a succession of occupations and artistic circles. Around 1959 or 1960, he travelled to Scotland to the Orkney Island of Rousay, after meeting the Caribbean-born Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay in Edinburgh. There, the two undertook manual labour repairing roads, an episode later transformed into poetry by Finlay, who portrayed Sharkey as a rebellious and unruly presence. Finlay also referred to Sharkey as the ‘Angel Boy’, a semi-mythic and feral figure who appeared in several of his early poems. One poem from this period centred on Sharkey accidentally setting fire to a caravan on the island. During the early 1960s, Sharkey spent time in Cornwall, reportedly working as a tin miner, before settling in Bristol. There he became involved with organising events at the Arnolfini and developed connections with poets and artists associated with concrete poetry and experimental publishing, particularly Dom Sylvester Houédard (dsh). By the mid-1960s, Sharkey had relocated to London and joined the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA).
Sharkey’s practice moved between poetry, typography, publishing, visual composition, and performance. He viewed concrete poetry as a form in which meaning emerged through visual pattern, rather than ordinary reading alone. During the 1960s, he contributed to small press networks devoted to concrete and visual poetry, including publications linked to Bath Academy of Art that brought together figures such as dsh, Finlay, Anselm Hollo, Pierre Garnier, Barry Miles, and David Hockney. Sharkey edited Mindplay: An Anthology of British Concrete Poetry (1971), one of the earliest major surveys of concrete poetry produced in the UK. The magazine Migrant (active in the late 1950s and early 1960s), edited by Gael Turnbull – which rejected conventional literary publishing standards in favour of inexpensive, rapidly produced small press experimentation connected to the international avant-garde – was inspired, among others, by Sharkey’s publication The Window.
Alongside his own creative work, Sharkey played an important organisational role within the British avant-garde during the 1960s. While working at the ICA in London, he became closely associated with the émigré artist, Gustav Metzger (who had shown with Ben Uri soon after arriving in the UK) and collaborated with him on the landmark Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS) in 1966. The symposium brought together an international network of artists, performers, poets, and activists concerned with destruction, political violence, technology, the industrial-military complex, and nuclear weapons. Some events generated controversy and police intervention, particularly performances involving the Viennese Actionists, after which both Sharkey and Metzger faced obscenity charges as organisers. Around the same period, Sharkey travelled to Edinburgh to participate in auto-destructive events organised by the Welsh artist, Ivor Davies. Sharkey also remained active within experimental poetry circles through performances, lectures, and correspondence with writers. Sharkey was involved with magazines such as Tlaloc and, in 1968, edited Structure Number 1, a journal linked to the Event Structure Research Group (ERG).
From the 1970s onwards, the available evidence suggests that Sharkey gradually withdrew from the London avant-garde and redirected much of his attention towards Celtic history, folklore, archaeology, and landscape. Travelling through Scotland and the Outer Hebrides with artist Keith Payne, he researched ancient monuments and local traditions, material that informed his 1986 publication The Road Through the Isles. Despite this shift in focus, his earlier experimental work remained an important contribution to British concrete poetry and countercultural publishing. Towards the end of his life, Sharkey was living quietly in rural Pembrokeshire, Wales.
John Sharkey died in England in 2014. Posthumously, his publication Pentacle (1969) was included in the Ben Uri Gallery and Museum exhibition Disruptors: Fractured Images and Migrant Wordl (2026). One work reconstructs the American flag through dollar signs and the words ‘kill’ and ‘maim’, produced in the context of the Vietnam War and American militarism, while another reinterprets the St George’s flag through fragmented textual interventions reading ‘us’ and ‘them’. These works form a rare example of overtly politicised work within British concrete poetry. In the UK public domain his work is represented in the Tate Collection and selected papers are held at the Tate Library and Archive, London.
Very little is known about John Sharkey, and the Ben Uri Research Unit welcomes information from researchers or family members who may be able to contribute further details. Some of the information used for this profile comes from unpublished research notes shared with the author by Dr Greg Thomas.
Ana-Maria Milčić
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [John Sharkey]
Publications related to [John Sharkey] in the Ben Uri Library