Gemma Smith Puzzle

Gemma Smith

Eleven

Color is both subject and content in Gemma Smith's luminous paintings, which revel in the interaction of intense pigments. Nuanced arrangements of calibrated primaries pull and push the picture plane. Smith’s palette has reached to the extremes of the chromatic scale in works such as Eleven, which are loaded with titanium white, exacting their color play at the palest end of the spectrum. She talks of making a painting where the colors are still active but almost indiscernible, emulating the phenomena of retinal burn after looking at one of her more high-key compositions.

Reproduced as a jigsaw puzzle the act of recomposing the image challenges and confirms our ability to recognize color even at the very threshold of perception.

Gemma Smith is a visual artist based in Sydney, Australia. Smith’s work is held in many private, state and national collections including The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Her work is represented by Sarah Cottier Gallery Sydney; Milani Gallery, Brisbane; and Starkwhite Gallery New Zealand.

Assembled dimensions: 635mm x 635mm
1024 pieces