Kate Smith Factory for one

24 April –
22 May 2021

Kate Smith

Form is temporary, class is permanent 1

, 2020
Oil and acrylic on canvas
29 x 41cm

The paintings and sculptures in Kate Smith’s exhibition, Factory for one, were produced from a sequence of considered yet hasty actions that combine processes of artmaking with the rote procedures of manual labour.

Smith’s artworks lay bare the conventions and challenges of her chosen mediums. Wry, witty yet critically perceptive, her works are active sites of negotiation in which opposing elements defiantly co-exist. Combining confident brushstrokes with hesitant gestures, Smith produces small-scale compositions that hover between figuration and abstraction. In playful subversion of the very tradition to which her work belongs, Smith overlays Western art historical references with personal narratives and often incorporates sculptural or relief elements. Her works deliberately eschew resolution in favour of a certain open ended-ness; for Smith the process of art making is one of constant re-evaluation.

Selected solo exhibitions

Form is temporary, class is permanent, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, Wagga Wagga, 2020; No more American sadness in music or film, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2019; An Impression of an impression, Sutton Gallery. Melbourne, 2017; Soily, TCB, Melbourne, 2016; If your into anything, you’ll always find your own morality play, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2014; A Country Practice, Switchback Gallery, Gippsland, 2013; Deep Privacy/Convex, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2012;Teenage Boi Boi Sounds, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne, 2011; Studio 12,Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2011; Freda Cimmons is hungover, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, 2010; Monkey makes a painting, Y3K Gallery, Melbourne, 2010; You’re the c**t, donut, Ocular Lab, Melbourne, 2009; it’s a practice, CCAS Manuka Space, Canberra, 2007

Selected group exhibitions

the drawing is just not there, West Space, Melbourne, 2018; I <3 Pat Larter, Neon Parc, Brunswick, 2017; Painting, More Painting, ACCA, Melbourne, 2016; Do sumn’, TCB, Melbourne, 2015; Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2013; Collage: The Heide Collection, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2013; Third/Fourth: Melbourne artist facilitated Biennial, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne, 2013; Anything, Everything and One Other Thing (Parts 1-5), Alaska Projects, Sydney, 2012; Gertrude Studios 2011, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 2011.

Artist’s profile