Anj Smith

9 Nov 2019-1 Mar 2020

Overview

Working primarily with painting, Anj Smith is interested in reflecting on the very possibilities and limitations of the medium itself. Her work excavates often-overlooked art histories, which she combines with her lived experiences, to form the layers of her work. Exploring the very edges of representation, Smith's ’s intricately rendered paintings explore issues of identity, eroticism, mortality and fragility. Within her remarkably detailed works, wildly feral landscapes, ambiguous figures, textiles, and rare and exotic flora and fauna are used, weaving archaic traditions and contemporary signs together into a personal cosmology. Her paintings are rich in detail, colour and texture, collapsing strict definitions of portraiture, landscape and still-life whilst allowing elements of each to coexist.