Sally Smart facts for kids

Sally Smart (born in 1960) is an Australian artist. She creates large art pieces called installations. These often combine many different materials. She uses felt cut-outs, painted canvas, drawings, and photos. Her art explores ideas about who we are and how our bodies connect to culture. Sally Smart's work is shown in galleries in Australia and around the world.

Early Life and Art Education

Sally Smart was born in 1960 in Quorn, South Australia. Her great-aunt, Bessie Davidson, was also an artist. Bessie's success in France encouraged Sally to become an artist too.

Sally studied graphic design in Adelaide. She then focused on painting in Melbourne. She earned a Post-graduate Diploma in Painting in 1988. Later, she completed a Master of Fine Arts in 1991. Both degrees were from the Victorian College of the Arts.

Sally Smart's Artworks

Sally Smart's early art was influenced by collage. This is an art technique where different pieces are glued together. By the 1990s, cutting and pasting became a main part of her work. She made compositions of cut-out shapes that spread across walls.

Exploring Identity and Culture

From the start, Sally's art focused on themes of identity. Her work The Unhomely Body (1996/1997) shows familiar things in an unsettling way. It suggests that the home can sometimes feel like a place where women were limited.

In Femmage Shadows and Symptoms (1999), Sally used the word "femmage." This word was created by a feminist artist, Miriam Schapiro. It connects to art made by women using various crafts and techniques. This large installation created a dream-like scene. Viewers could find images that might remind them of childhood memories. Sally even wore a costume made of internal body parts for this work. This showed inner emotions.

Shadow Trees in Melbourne

The Exquisite Pirate Series

Starting in 2006, Sally showed her Exquisite Pirate series. The name hints at a surrealist art game called "exquisite corpse." It also suggests breaking rules to create amazing art. One art critic said her work was like "phantasmagorical apparitions." These are like magical, dream-like images that appear and then disappear.

Another reviewer saw her art as many small pieces. These pieces are always being rearranged to create new meanings. Sally Smart uses these ideas to explore how complex things can be understood.

The Choreography of Cutting

In her recent installations, Sally Smart explores three topics. These are early 20th-century art, traditional Indonesian folk art, and the act of cutting. She finds links between costume designs from the Ballets Russes and Javanese puppetry.

She digitally cuts up and rearranges designs. She also uses quotes from famous artists and writers. These quotes are "cut" from their original texts and written on walls. Sally uses her whole body to create these large pieces. She reaches, bends, and moves across the canvas. This process acts out the idea of choreography. Her work also includes videos of puppets and shadows dancing.

Sally Smart's art often reflects how women artists have challenged traditions. She finds inspiration from innovative women artists of the early 1900s.

Exhibitions Around the World

Sally Smart has shown her art internationally. Her work has been seen in Singapore, Korea, Japan, and China. She has also exhibited in the United States. She lives and works in Melbourne, Victoria.

Awards and Recognition

Sally Smart has received several awards for her art:

• Redlands Westpac Art Prize, Sydney (2004)
• Sackler Fellow Artist-in Residence, University of Connecticut, USA (2012)
• Australia Council Fellowship (2014)
• Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne (2017)

Other Important Roles

Sally Smart has also held important positions in the art world:

• She was a Trustee at the National Gallery of Victoria from 2001 to 2008.
• She served as a Board member (Deputy Chair) at the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) from 2016 to 2019.

Selected Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

Sally Smart has had many solo shows. These have been in Australia and other countries. She has exhibited in China, the United States, Belgium, and Japan.

• The Unhomely Body

• 1996, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide
• 1997, Robert Lindsay Gallery, Melbourne

• Femmage Shadows and Symptoms

• 1999, Fukuoka Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan
• 2001, G2 Gallery Auckland, New Zealand
• 2010, McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, Langwarrin

• Shadow Farm

• 2000, Wollongong City Gallery, Wollongong
• 2000, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne
• 2001, Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo
• 2002, Bond University Gallery, Gold Coast
• 2002, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane

• Family Tree House, 2001, Galeria Barro Senna Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Sally Smart, 2003, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, Melbourne
• The Exquisite Pirate

• 2006, Postmasters Gallery, New York
• 2006, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
• 2006, Dangerous Waters: Cornell University, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, New York
• 2007, Yawk, Yawk: 24HR Art, Darwin, NT
• 2007, North Sea: Ter Caemer-Meert Contemporary, Kortrijk, Belgium
• 2008, Installation, Scope Basel, Basel, Switzerland
• 2009, South China Sea: OV Gallery, Shanghai, China
• 2012, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, UK

• Decoy Nest

• 2008, Postmasters Gallery, New York
• 2011, Greenaway Art Gallery, Melbourne

• Flaubert’s Puppets, 2011, Postmasters Gallery, New York, NY, USA
• Performativities (Work On Paper), 2011, Amelia Johnson Contemporary, Hong Kong, China
• The Log Dance (In Her Nature)

• 2011, Breenspace, Sydney
• 2012, ArtHK 2012, Amelia Johnson Contemporary, Hong Kong, China

• I Build My Time, 2012, Fehitly Contemporary, Melbourne
• Choreographing Collage, 2013, Breenspace Sydney
• The Choreography of Cutting (The Pedagogical Puppet Projects)

• 2013, Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide
• 2015, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, UK
• 2016, Postmasters Gallery, New York
• 2017, Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne
• 2018, Tony Raka Art Gallery, Ubud, and P.A.R.A.D.E. at BIASA, Kerobokan, Indonesia

• The Shadow Trees Sculpture Installation, 2014, Victoria Harbour, Docklands, Melbourne

Group Exhibitions

Sally Smart has also been part of many group exhibitions:

• 2015–2016 Conversation: Endless Acts in Human History, National Gallery of Indonesia
• 2013 COLLECTIVE IDENTITY(IeS): THIS IS THAT TIME – Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery
• 2012 Contemporary Australia: Women – Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland
• 2002 Arid Arcadia: art of the Flinders Ranges, Art Gallery of South Australia
• 1998 Unhomely, Wooyang Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea

Art Collections

Sally Smart's artworks are held in important collections. These include:

• National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
• Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
• GOMA/Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
• Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tamaki, Auckland, New Zealand
• Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, New York, USA
• British Museum, London, UK