Gemma Smith is an Australian artist whose abstract paintings and sculptures explore the interaction between colour and surface, intention and chance.
Since 2000, Smith’s work has featured in more than 100 exhibitions. In 2019, University of New South Wales Galleries held a major retrospective of her work titled Rhythm Sequence. Notable exhibitions include: Living Patterns, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2023; Australian Art, Storylines, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2022; Know My Name, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2020; Superposition of three types, Artspace, Sydney, 2017; Painting. More Painting, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2016; Forcefields, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2014; Case Study: Gemma Smith Considers the Work of Margo Lewers, Penrith Regional Gallery, Sydney, 2011; Cubism & Australian Art, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne, 2009; Gemma Smith: Entanglement Factor, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne 2009; Contemporary Australia: Optimism, Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2008; Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2008.
Smith has exhibited regularly with Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney, since 2006; with Milani Gallery, Brisbane from 2008; and Starkwhite, Auckland, beginning 2020.
In 2017, Formist publications produced Smith’s first monograph, Found Ground.
Smith’s work is held in museum, corporate and private collections, including those of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Queensland College of Art and Griffith Artworks, Brisbane; Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane; University of Queensland, Brisbane; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; Murdoch University, Perth; Deakin University, Melbourne; Artbank, Sydney; KPMG, Brisbane; Gaden’s Lawyers, Brisbane; QIC, Brisbane; and UBS, Sydney.
Smith has produced several public artworks including Bourke Street Tangle Painting, Sydney, produced as a gift for to Bourke Street Public School, 2020; Triple Tangle, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Foyer Commission, 2018; and Collision and Improvisation (ceiling), 2012, Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law, Brisbane.
In 2023 Gemma was supported by Create NSW to participate in Art Omi: Artists, international residency program, Ghent, New York. In 2022 Smith was Artist in Residence at Bundanon, NSW.
Smith was born in Sydney and based there until 2004; in Brisbane from 2004 to 2012; and in Pittsburgh, United States, from 2012 to 2014. Smith studied at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney; and Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. She currently lives and works in Sydney.