Artist Talk: In Conversation with Kate Smith

Join us for a conversation between Mangoplah-based painter Kate Smith, one of the four featured artists in Zombie Eaters, with Curator Michael Moran. Smith’s lively compositions lie somewhere between figurative and abstract, and conveys her joyful and often fraught approach to her painting practice.

Kate Smith is a nationally recognised artist whose work has been included in major institutional exhibitions. She will discuss her motivations to paint, and what it means to sustain a practice outside of the major city centres. The conversation will take place within the presentation of Smith’s works as we explore selected paintings made between 2008 – 2022.

About the Artist

Kate Smith’s paintings lay bare the conventions and challenges of the medium. 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 In playful subversion of the very tradition to which her work belongs, Smith overlays Western art historical references with personal narratives and often incorporates sculptural or relief elements. Her works deliberately eschew resolution in favour of a certain open ended-ness; for Smith the process of painting is one of constant re-evaluation.