Collapsing Space
Helen Smith & Jeremy Kirwan-Ward
February 2nd – 24th, 2024
Main Gallery
Historically, concrete and non-objective art have adhered to the notion of non-narrative.
Within the conceptual premise for the exhibition, both artists have used layering, stacking and slumping to alter readings of space between planes, on both a visual and metaphoric level.
Helen Smith’s practice is influenced by a formal, reductionist viewpoint with simplicity of form and geometric abstraction generally contributing to the outcome. Oil on canvas paintings, large scale wall works and a number of ongoing photographic series derived from an interest in social and cultural systems form the basis for her enquiry.
Her works are included in the Collections of National Gallery of Australia, Daimler Collection Berlin, Artbank – National Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, Australian Embassy – Madrid, John Curtin Gallery – Curtin University of Technology, Louis Vuitton Collection, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery University of WA, Murdoch University, BankWest, PS Netherlands, Hebel 121 Collection and various private collections in Australia and Europe.
She has recently completed a Master of Fine Art with the Sydney College of the Arts and exhibitions of note include State of Abstraction at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, New Contemporaries at Sydney College of the Arts, the WA Focus retrospective at the Art Gallery of WA, Night fill at PS Projectspace, Amsterdam, In-Formalism Casula Powerhouse Project Sydney curated by Andrew Leslie, Blue Highway at Gallery9, Sydney and Australian Centre for Concret Art @ FABRIKCulture, Hegenheim, France and she has participated in research Residencies in Auckland (Fauvette Loureiro Travel Scholarship), at Point B Residency in New York and at the Institut Fur Alles Mogliche in Berlin.
She lives and works in Bulanaming (Sydney).
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Jeremy Kirwan-Ward has been an exhibiting painter for the best part of forty years. In that time he has had over twenty solo exhibitions and participated in numerous prestigious group shows. Exhibitions of note include State of Abstraction at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and Reflection/Submersion, Perth Festival, Holmes à Court Gallery, West Perth, Australian Centre for Concret Art @ FABRIKCulture, Hegenheim, France and he has participated in research Residencies at Point B Residency in New York and at the Institut Fur Alles Mogliche in Berlin
He is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, National Gallery of Scotland, Art Gallery of South Australia, Artbank and major institutional, public and corporate collections.
He is a member of the Australian Centre for Concrete Art (ac4ca), ArtCollectiveWA, and a committee member of Sydney Non-Obective (SNO).
He is currently living and working in Bulanaming (Sydney)
