A process-based approach to painting has led Gemma Smith’s exploration of abstraction for over two decades. She has continually pushed her practice in new directions, approaching painting through a variety of conceptual methodologies. Sometimes, self-imposed boundaries set the terms of compositional games; while at others times she pits intuition and chance against analysis and control. A sense of discovery infiltrates each work, never moving towards a pre-determined composition but harnessing an infectious sense of potentiality. While the method may vary for different bodies of work, the embrace of the pleasure or sensation of painting is key to Smith’s practice.

Selected Works
Dropdown IconSelected Works
Thrown open 2022

acrylic on linen
180 × 180 cm

Corn crib window painting 2023

acrylic on canvas
136 × 121 cm

Gemma Smith: Rhythm Sequence, 2019, installation view, UNSW Galleries, Sydney
Photography: Zan Wimberley, 2019

Triple Tangle, 2018, Museum of Contemporary Art, Photography Anna Kucera

Gemma Smith: Rhythm Sequence, 2019, installation view, UNSW Galleries, Sydney
Photography: Zan Wimberley, 2019

Zero, 2016, acrylic on linen, 185 x 185 cm, Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection.

Adaptable (mint/golden green), 2008
synthetic polymer paint on aircraft plywood, polyester
installed dimensions variable
Collection of Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

Collision and Improvisation (ceiling), 2012
Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, Brisbane
Acrylic on concrete
16 x 16m
Photography: John Gollings

On, off, 2023, installation view
Photography Sarah Cottier Gallery, 2023

Portal Painting, 2018, acrylic on polyester, 223 x 203 cm, Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Windward 2023

Acrylic, linen, and canvas on linen
230 × 200 cm

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About

Gemma Smith

Biography

Lives and works in Sydney, Australia
Born 1978

A process-based approach to painting has led Gemma Smith’s exploration of abstraction for over two decades. She has continually pushed her practice in new directions, approaching painting through a variety of conceptual methodologies. Sometimes, self-imposed boundaries set the terms of compositional games; while at others times she pits intuition and chance against analysis and control. A sense of discovery infiltrates each work, never moving towards a pre-determined composition but harnessing an infectious sense of potentiality. While the method may vary for different bodies of work, the embrace of the pleasure or sensation of painting is key to Smith’s practice.

Emily Cormack writes, “Smith’s practice is like an ecosystem unto itself, adhering to its own codes and systems that mutate wilfully and with obvious pleasure.” Colour is arguably Smith’s subject as a painter. She has long been interested in its theories and histories but is also attuned to its sensational qualities. Though relentless trial and error, she explores its interactions and dimensionality, creating complex visual puzzles that create deeply rewarding experiences for the viewer. Smith’s painting is a celebration of chromatic dynamism, teetering the line between a focused methodology and improvised intuition. As Julie Ewington so aptly writes, Smith’s painting “takes a perverse pleasure in colour”, and it is truly the joy of colour that lies at the heart of her practice.

A leading figure in contemporary painting, Smith’s work has been collected extensively, and is held in major institutional collections across the country. Recently her work featured in the inaugural collection display at the AGNSW new Naala Badu building and has been included in exhibitions such as Living Patterns, Queensland Art Gallery/ Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (2023), Know My Name Know My Name, National Gallery, Canberra (2020), and Wheriko - Brilliant!, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhet, Christchurch (2019), . Smith has completed major public art projects such as Collision and Improvisation at the Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law (Brisbane, 2012), and Triple Tangle, the 2018 Foyer Wall Commission at the MCA. A major survey of her career, Rhythm Sequence (2019), was exhibited at UNSW Galleries in Sydney, and travelled to QUT Art Museum, Brisbane.

Gemma Smith in her studio, 2024, Photography Jessica Maurer.

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