Sam Smith

Smith graduated from the MFA in Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2015. He completed a BFA with Honours at the College of Fine Arts, Sydney in 2003.

In 2014 Smith was awarded both the Goldsmiths International Postgraduate Scholarship and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. From the Australia Council Visual Arts Board he received a Skills and Arts Development grant in 2012 and was twice the recipient of a New Work grant (2007 and 2010). In 2007 Smith received the Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship to undertake a series of artist mentorships in New York City and Berlin. He also won the inaugural 2008 Wilson HTM National Art Prize, the 2008 Churchie National Emerging Art Award and was a finalist in the inaugural Premier of Queensland's National New Media Art Award.

Encompassing video, sculpture and architectural elements, 'Form Variations' (2014) is a single channel video installation housed inside a viewing apparatus. Consisting of a wall structure, curtain, seating, window box and sculptural objects these items are lifted into the space from their roles in the video. The seating dimensions are based upon the two most common current widescreen cinematic display formats and the window box (which allows the audience to glimpse a reframed version of the video from outside the viewing room) also uses this logic, employing the 1.375:1 Academy ratio that was standardised in 1932. The video is shot in CinemaScope and uses this hyper-wide frame to maximise a precise cinematographic view on three-dimensional form. Key to the video is a re-imagining of the opening shot from Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Eclisse (1962) in which the character of Riccardo's arm transitions between animate and inanimate form.

From 2013 to 2014 he was part of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien International Studio Programme in 2013/14. Recent solo projects include ‘The Performative Minute’ at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2014); ’Notes on the Apparatus’ selected by Vdrome for the Artists' Film Biennial, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2014); 'Frames of Reference', a solo exhibition at The Royal Standard as part of their Liverpool Biennial 2014 programme (2014); and 'Form Variations' at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2014). He has participated in numerous group shows including 'Online/Offline. Encoding Everyday Life for Vorspeil Transmediale', Altes Finanzamt, Berlin (2014); 'Oblivion', Zweigstelle Berlin (2014); 'Conquest of Space', COFA Galleries, Sydney, Australia (2014); 'Larger than life', Temporära Konsthallen, Stockholm (2013) and 'Framed Perceptions', Sinne, Helsinki (2013).

'NOTES' (2013-) is a series of live video performances where prepared film, video and photographic material is structured together into a stream of collaged audio-visual vignettes. For each performance, through the manipulation of a shifting archive of sampled material, new sets of relations arise. From a central computer, the prepared footage is combined with satellite imagery; real-time video sources; text overlays and subtle software interventions. The work was first performed at Old School #25 in Lisbon, a curatorial project by Susana Pomba. This was followed by the Artists' Film Biennial 2014 at the ICA as selected by Vdrome; 24 Kitchen Street, Liverpool. In collaboration with The Royal Standard; 'THE PERFORMATIVE MINUTE', KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; and as part of 'Your Time Is Not My Time', De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam (upcoming).

Sam Smith (born 1980) is a contemporary Australian artist. He lives and works in London and Sydney.