Amelia Johnson Contemporary is delighted to present the second solo exhibition of leading Australian artist, Sally Smart, in Hong Kong.
I imagine picturing thinking about the meanings of the world; inevitably the discourse begins with the body, a forensic activity, an external and internal examination of the parts, displaying what is seen, including the parts of the body’s environment: clothes, house, furniture, landscape. This becomes an anatomy of the world lesson; where dissected parts are examined and reconstructions are made for explanations.
Sally Smart 2009
Performativities is a series of works on paper whose elements have been drawn from Smart’s entire artistic career. As such the works can be read individually, in parts, or as a whole. This work is about making a visual construction of ideas like mapping, diagramming, charting, or planning; but open, showing the process of that kind of working, drawing, assembling. The finished pieces use painted felt, paper, silkscreen, photographs, drawing and other materials. Presented in long rows of identical frames the individual disappears into a complex, colourful wall assemblage. Inevitably the conclusion is like a puzzle-picture; a maze of fugitive parts; tree parts become human parts, and body parts become abstract parts; but whether the lines, shapes and colours appear abstract or representational, there is an ‘all-over composition’ of the parts. The composition, however, is unstable, “a queerly shifting construction”, a chimera; the picture is impaired.
Smart’s ability to combine mixed-media collage, intellectual sampling, and historical references creates fractured, epic spectacles that are part fantasy, part social critique.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. 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.
