Anj Smith spoke at the fifth edition of Hauser & Wirth Somerset's Art Work series: ‘Art Work: Meet the Painter’. This event invited 6th form students to meet the artist and find out more about her career as an artist.
About Anj Smith
‘I love the idea that painting is dead and yet is still limping on to hypnotise and seduce us. For me, this is where the uniquely profound nature of painting is located. No other medium offers this specific legacy, which feels particularly apt in negotiating the great global & personal uncertainties of now. This difficult, baggage-ridden, faltering yet essentially surviving medium enables me to excavate often-overlooked art histories. These then filter down, combining with my lived experiences to form the layers of the work. Painting can facilitate the complexity of all of this, allowing me to explore the very edges of representation.’
Anj Smith is one of the UK’s leading contemporary artists. Born in 1978 in Kent, England, Anj Smith studied at Slade School of Fine Art and at Goldsmiths College in London. Smith’s work has been exhibited at the Bluecoat, Liverpool, England; Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville TN; Hudson Valley Centre for Contemporary Art, Peekskill NY; La Maison Rouge, Paris, France, and Me Collector’s Room, Berlin, Germany, among other museums and galleries in Europe, the United States and Asia.
In 2016, Anj Smith guest curated the Bow Open Show at the Nunnery Gallery, London. In 2018 the Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland, will present a major solo exhibition with the artist. Smith’s work is also displayed in the collections of many leading international museums and collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; MOCA The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles CA; DRAF David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK and the Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland.
