AMITA KIRPALANI Painters tend to be ‘close lookers’ – returning again and again to the work of other painters. Does this also describe your way of looking?
GEMMA SMITH When I look at other artists’ work, the process of looking is often associated with unpacking how a work was made – material questions, as well as thinking through the types of decisions that may have been made and what the results were. Because I’m not able to conjure an image in my mind (a condition called aphantasia), the looking becomes key and is associated with coming to terms with other artists’ processes.
I value the act of looking at a painting in its presence. So much is lost in reproduction. Painting becomes sterile, far from its messy, visceral self. Expanses of colour operate differently at scale. I also keenly observe technical details and the way the painting is shown.
AK Of all your work, Bask seems most like a self-portrait. This most recent body of work, Orbits, appears to be, in part, about your body, specifically your physical reach. Could you describe this?
GS This is a valid point, because of this work’s relationship to the body. The scale of the recent works has a relationship to my physical reach, particular gestures and the tools that I’m using – large, raspy brushes that cover a vast area in a single layer only to be sculpted back in with a cloth. But, for me, in making the work, the gestures aren’t indexical. I don’t see them as evidence of a painting performance I made in the studio. The paintings are culminations of compositional decisions – added, erased, modified, each gesture produced at speed – but each painting the product of months of daily layers. Some of these layers are buried, not visible anymore.
I also moderate my tools so that they relate to the scale of the painting. For Triple tangle, 2018, a 16-metre foyer-wall painting at the Museum of Contemporary Art, I increased my own capabilities by attaching a paintbrush to a pole, making my reach giant-like. At the end, the composition did not function as a trace of my movement around the wall, it was more about the space, the light and the way people engage with the work.
AK Can you describe your technique in more detail?
GS The paintings are made through the accumulation of many single layers, each applied daily. I start by mixing a colour in response to what I can see in front of me. I extend and enhance the translucent properties of the paint by adding acrylic binder. Using a large, raspy brush I cover a vast area of the painting in a single gestural layer – only to sculpt back in, shaping the space using great arc-like sweeping motions with the full reach of my arm using a cloth wipe, erasing superfluous areas.
With this larger scale of work, I am also moving across or down the work as I sweep. I give myself mere moments to decide whether I immediately wash off the whole plane of colour and go again with a slightly different approach, or leave it as is – the faster the decision, the more intuitive the response. As soon as this decision is made, I manoeuvre the stretcher so it lays flat on the ground to dry. The following day, repeat, and so on, sometimes for months. This work, Bask, was particularly physical.
AK Could you talk a little about the colour palette of Orbits?
GS The unexpected nature of working with colour and its interactions is what engages me in this work. I set up scenarios to surprise myself by overlaying acrylic glazes. I am fascinated by murky interactions of colour – a cobalt purple over a bushy green – and how they sit against high-key bright colours, sometimes only allowing hints of what’s happening below.
At the outset I had the idea to make these four large paintings each a monochrome painting, using just one colour for each work. Bask was to be quinacridone burnt orange. I would allow the varying density of overlaid layers and their graphic edge-lines to build the composition. However, I often work against my will in the moment, and Bask broke from my preconceived plan for it. I could not help broadening Bask’s spectrum of colours.
AK The title of your survey exhibition, Rhythm Sequence (curated by Jose Da Silva for University of New South Wales), seems to communicate, in part, the way that time operates in your studio. You’ve described your experimentation process, which appears full of risk and game-playing. Does each body of work tend to commit to a specific pattern of fast and slow – a kind of rhythm sequence?
GS Time works differently in the studio. I somehow lose hours. These paintings are incredibly slow to evolve, though my daily work with them feels fast – decisions must be made quickly before the paint begins to dry.
While I consciously encourage some works in the studio to be more intuitive and free, I double down on others, really bossing them around. I slowly, joyously agonise over colour shifts, both vast and incremental, playing out each change fully before either accepting it or, most often, rejecting it.
AK Your work often demands a closer inspection. Subtleties of line, shape and colour emerge with subsequent viewings.
GS For me it’s about trying to surprise myself or discover something. I love the feeling of being delighted by chance interactions of colours I’d never expected or aimed for. In fact, if I feel a methodology becomes too much of a known quantity, I’ll shift it. I’ll make rules or ban an approach or material in the studio, making it more likely I’ll arrive somewhere unexpected.
I set up games to find compositions too. For example, I use clear coats of paint with different gloss levels to make an invisible painting over a gestural ground and then paint out areas to see what I can discover. Bask was titled for the feeling I had standing in front of it, being enveloped by a glow!
Amita Kirpalani is NGV Curator, Contemporary Art. Gemma Smith is a Sydney-based painter and sculptor.
Bask, 2023, joined the NGV Collection through the Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists.
This article first appeared in NGV Magazine, Jan-Feb, 2025.