Bec works with the building blocks of geometry with deep consideration to
position, form and dynamic; each arrangement placed with particular intention.
Artist Statement
Bec’s formal design background shapes her visual output, as well as the particular line of enquiry she follows in order to translate her work. An interest in the ‘dynamics between things’: what people say and do, time, cause and effect, duality. Her fascination with people and how they interact with their surroundings is what drives both her art and her career. Through her work as an Experience Designer (UX Designer) she investigates and documents other people’s thoughts, emotions and circumstances so that their needs are translated into an intuitive digital experience. Her art follows the same pattern and her paintings are realisations of actual, and idealised situations. But whether an exchange, an emotion, or an environment, her paintings expose a particular moment in time for how she experienced it.
Biography
At secondary school and university I undertook both Art and Design, and have dedicated my whole career to these disciplines. I’ve worked both in Australia and overseas for over 20 years as a digital designer, and during this time I’ve always practiced art. I’ve painted colour-study portraits of my colleagues, co-created an installation for the Melbourne Design Festival, kept visual journals, and painted artworks for friends’ walls. I have always stayed particularly interested in abstract, expressionist, non-objective, and colourfield paintings from the early part of the last century – a natural extension of a designer’s grounding in the early design language of the Bauhaus.
Exhibitions
2020 Inner Mechanics Creo Melbourne, Paddington, Sydney
2020 Cassette, solo, Saint Cloche, Paddington, Sydney
2019 Sub, solo, Saint Cloche, Paddington, Sydney
2018 CAMEOS, solo, Saint Cloche, Paddington, Sydney
2018 Terra Oztralis, group, Outre Gallery, Melbourne
2018 Ode To The Suburban Songbird, group Tinning Street Gallery, Brunswick, Melbourne
2018 No Peace In Quiet, group, Charity Art Exhibition and Auction, Melbourne
2018 This Is Home, Book Launch & Exhibition, group, Sydney
2018 The Mid-Century Project Installation, ICI House, Melbourne Design Festival
2017 Jet Set, group, , Saint Cloche, Paddington, Sydney
2017 Mutual Abstraction with Hannah Fox, dual, Junior Space Gallery, Fitzroy
2016 Tidy Mind / Punk Heart, solo, Pop and Scott Showroom, Melbourne
2016 Small Works Prize, public, The Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne
2014 Belle Arti Prize, public, Chapman & Bailey, Melbourne (See the Belle Arti Instagram feed.)
2007 Beautiful View with Annette Wagner, Melbourne Design Festival, Melbourne
Formal Training
- The Art Room, Melbourne
- CAE, Melbourne
- The Art Academy, London
- Swinburne National School of Design, Melbourne / Bachelor of Design (Graphic Design)
- Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
- Sunraysia Institute, Sunraysia
Publications
2018 RUSSH Magazine, Embracing change with artist Bec Smith
2018 The Design Files, Bec Smith’s Cameo Role
2017 Launched Tell Tale Signs with Nikki Stefanoff, an online chronicle of other people’s stories
2017 The Design Files, Bec Smith and Hannah Fox’s ‘Mutual Abstraction’
2015 Paintings displayed in house tour in Apartment Therapy online
2013 Poster for Man About the House show, Melbourne Comedy Festival