Statement
Watchful, insistent and awkwardly intimate, Smith gathers, prods and probes her way through a suspect world. Navigating a fog of social norms it’s the junctures that appeal. The tessellation and the slippage. The tiny shifts in gesture, context, location, language, that tip something into another - appropriate to inappropriate, accumulation to compulsion, irritation to arousal, contrary to political.
Taxonomy, typology, classification - systems both appeal and grate. Everything is better when it's sorted. Gathering becomes a recurrent theme, tracking the narrative journey of accumulation from whimsy, to evidence, to pointlessness. As gloomy as it is playful, Smith's practice teeters between mismanaged exorcisms and compulsive accumulations of proof.
CV
Exhibition History:
Group (selected)
The Burlington Fine Arts Club, Manchester, 2011
The Burlington Fine Arts Club, Manchester, 2011
We Are All in This Together, Bureau, Manchester, 2011
Frankophilia!, Chapman Gallery, Salford, 2010
HAAA, exhibition and art auction for Haiti appeal, CUBE, Manchester, 2010
Dispersal, Interventions Part 1, various sites Birmingham, Manchester & Lincoln, 2009
Trade City, CAM, Manchester, 2009
ANTIFREEZE, CAM, Manchester, 2009
ArtDogging, 100th Monkey, Leicestershire, 2009
GazeAndBody, Rotoreliefs, London, 2009
Practical Propagation, Vrits, Basel, 2008
Line Out, Leicester Short Film Festival, The Phoenix Arts Centre, Leicester, 2008
The Streaming Festival, on-line, 2008
Blank Noise Spectators Special, on-line, 2008
5th Edinburgh Annuale, The Embassy, Edinburgh 2008
Roll Up Art, University of Architecture, Bucharest 2008
An Emotional Journey, Mansfield Museum, Nottinghamshire 2008
Closer, Wolstenholme Projects, Liverpool 2008
Blank Media Presents, Fuel, Manchester 2008
Lonely This Christmas, Cinema Boards, Lancaster 2007/8
Project, Another Roadside Attraction, London 2007
Spook Up I Can't Hear You, The Embassy, Edinburgh 2007
Line Out, Leicester Short Film Festival, Leicester 2007
Done to Death, 14 Gifted Children, Manchester 2007
Aerials, MMU degree show, Manchester 2007
Panoramic, 14 Gifted Children, Manchester 2007
Should We Distinguish Between This and That, 14 Gifted Children, Manchester, 2007
Inbetween Spaces, Look07 Photography Festival, city centre billboard, Manchester 2007
Wireless, Wolstenholme Square, Liverpool Biennial 2006
Room X, Kiasma, Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki 2006
Solo
Solo
Sometimes You Can Tell & You Tense & Lo & Behold They Do, Greenroom, Manchester 2007
Fear of Small Things, The Lowry Project Space, Salford 2006
Solo curatorial projects
Frankophilia!, Chapman Gallery, University of Salford, 2010
HAAA, exhibition and art auction for Haiti appeal, CUBE, Manchester, 2010
Lonely This Christmas, cinema boards, Lancaster 2007/8
Education
MA Cultural Theory, Lancaster University, 2008
BA Fine Art, Manchester School of Art, 2007
Art & Design Year 0, University of Central Lancashire, 2004
Awards
AHRC postgraduate scholarship, 2007-8
