Isabelle Smith
Artist Statement
Isabelle Smith is a visual artist working predominantly in oil paint. Her practice constructs psychological interior spaces that reflect the female experience, histories of institutionalised containment, societal isolation and restraint. Isabelle’s research based practice uses archival material and personal reflections to visualise this universal narrative. Her large scale paintings explore these concepts through claustrophobic compositions, selective symbolic objects and a vibrant colour palette. The colour pink is a recurring dominant element of her work, the synthetic nature of the material contrasts with the historically heavy subject matter and reflects upon contemporary societies attitudes towards stereotyping and demeaning the voices and actions of women.
Isabelle’s studio practice is extremely process orientated and uses the materiality of oil paint to create visceral objects and experiences. She creates multi-layered paintings through unique grammars of painting, using expressive brushstrokes and technical compositions to achieve an unequal distribution of emphasis that distorts the viewer's perspective. Methods such as scrapping, dragging and covering up paint reinforces the historical context of the work in regards to violence against women and the covering up of state occurrences. The addition of a strangely humorous signature rabbit acts as a sense of comfort around such traumatic narratives.