Kate Smith, Form is temporary, class in permanent, 2020, installation view (detail), Wagga Wagga Art Gallery. Photo: Jackie Cooper. Courtesy: the artist and Sutton Gallery, Melbourne.

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 In playful subversion of the very tradition to which her work belongs, Smith overlays Western art historical references with personal narratives and often incorporates sculptural or relief elements.

Follow this artist