AustLit
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Artist: Sam Smith
Birth Date/Place: 1980, Sydney, Australia
This artist's profile was developed by Kathryn Halliday during 2014 at The University of Queensland as a part of the Visual Arts Curating and Writing course, convened by Dr Allison Holland.
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In 2003, Sam Smith completed an honors degree in Fine Arts at the College of Fine Arts, University of NSW. He has regularly exhibited in Australia at instituations such as GoMa, Macquarie University Gallery, Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts Centre, 4A Australia Arts Centre, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, also in abroad in Japan, Spain, Brazil, Ireland, Thailand and China.
Smith is a video installation artist interested in the mechanics of cinematic production and special effects technologies. He uses these media to form parallel universes to test rational behaviour of subject matter, which is displaced by a realm of digital possibility (QAGOMA, 2012). His interest in the capacity of moving images in order to manipulate our sense of time and space is exhibited through fictitious realms, which are designed to absorb the viewer (QAGOMA, 2012).
Smith works across sculptural construction and moving image to create a visual language that speaks to both the history of cinema and its possible future forms (Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, 2013). Smith’s intention is to prompt us to “rethink sculpture as montage, cinematic editing as object construction, and technical image apparatus as subject” (Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, 2013). He connects new technologies with traditional processes and toold through his spatial experiments, fractured narratives and structural exercises (Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, 2013). Smith does not manipulate or disguise the elements of space, time, form and perception; he exposes them to be exactly what they are in order to create a new perspective via science fiction style (QAGOMA, 2012).
He uses cinematic green/blue screens in digital film so the objects can be isolated and removed. The back then becomes a symbolic feature of the video’s ability to transport, transform and ultimately render the contents of the world malleable (Smith, Frame, Lens , 2012). Smith’s work integrates sculptural construction and moving image in an artistic critique of cinema’s apparatus (QAGOMA, 2012). His significant works include Frame, Lens 2012, Camerman 2011, and Into the Void 2009.
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Smith is a contemporary artist currently working in Berlin, Germany. He has exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions, which has provided him with great publicity and opportunity to further his career as an artist (Art Gallery of NSW, 2011). His recent solo exhibitions in Australia were at Permutation Set, Artspace, Sydney (2010), and Performance Space, Sydney, 2011. His video works have been shown in curated screening programs around the world (Art Gallery of NSW, 2011).
His first solo project, ‘Cameraman’ (2011), is a two-channel video installation shot in Berlin. He commonly uses two-channel video installation. The work captures a sequence of events that take place between a film set, a cameraman’s apartment and an artist studio, involving a camera lens imbued with mystical qualities. The two camera lenses form a realm in which the viewer is shown different perspectives of the scenario. One is real and the other is sculpted by the artist. Smith previously worked exclusively with film, however this project is the first work that links celluloid film, sculptural practice and video installation through narrative-based cinematic language (Art Gallery of NSW, 2011). Cameraman is recognized as one of Smith’s first forays into narrative-driven action (Art Gallery of NSW, 2011). Later in his career, Smith releases the work Frame, Lens 2012, which involves experiments on cinematic language and technique.
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