A rising star of the Australian art world, Sally Smart’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in the Asia-Pacific region, in shows ranging from the Biennale Jogja in 2005 to 2006 Contemporary Commonwealth. In the last two years she has also debuted in New York to great critical acclaim and at Art Basel Miami.
Smart’s colorful wall assemblages of painted felt and other materials combine mixed-media collage, intellectual sampling, and historical references to create fractured, epic spectacles that are part fantasy, part social critique. To attain her cumulative, fragmentary worlds of fantastic possibilities Smart draws inspiration from a wide range of sources including Surrealism and Dadaism. Working across different media such as painting, collage and multi-layered installations, her preoccupation with cutting and fabricating also alludes to a long-held commitment to feminism and the desire to take risks and transcend boundaries
For her Hong Kong solo debut at Amelia Johnson Contemporary, Smart resurrects the history of female pirates in her series The Exquisite Pirate. The all-encompassing installation will transport viewers into a ghostly armada hovering on the gallery walls, accented by skull-and-crossbones and details such as an electric blue pirate flag whipping from the main mast and a bleached skeleton strung up from a ship's prow. Mixing layers of multi-patterned, multi-textured fabric to evoke spatial depth and dynamism, her patchwork aesthetic borrows from the two-dimensional forms of Indonesian wayang shadow puppets. The Exquisite Pirate also refers back to Foucault's treatise on heterotopia, in which he describes boats as a place without a place. In Smart's work, female pirates embody a history without a history.
Along with the strong visual impact of the imagery in Sally Smart’s work, it is the richness of implication, triggering an array of conscious and subconscious associations, that gives her work its poetic resonance, depth and potency. A fiercely innovative voice in feminist and post-colonial art, Smart deftly handles weighty material with a light touch and is truly ready for world wide recognition.
Sally Smart will be present at the cocktail reception on 8th May 2008.
