Katey Smoker | Australian Contemporary Artist

Three dimensional cast paint sculpture by Adelaide artist Katey Smoker.

“Through a repetitive crafting of paint, Katey Smoker has created paintings that are devoid entirely of a fabric surface, or even a relatively flat paint surface. They form grids and structures expanding into relief and sculpture, recreating familiar forms rather than simply depicting them.”

– Troy-Anthony Baylis, It's No Longer Fluid
ACE Gallery Studios Catalogue 2024

Fractured, 2024, acrylic paint

Artist Statement

I create sculptural objects built entirely from paint, using repetition and process to develop forms that hold themselves in space. By treating painting as a methodology rather than a technique, I reconsider the traditional relationship between support and image.

A lifetime of movement across Australia has shaped my awareness of impermanence and instability, leading me to the grid as a way of establishing structure. Within this framework, the behaviour of paint continually tests its limits. It resists total control, and through this resistance the structure shifts, revealing how small variations accumulate into a physical architecture.

Operating across varied scales, my work maintains a physical presence where structure and material remain in tension. The grid establishes a system, but it cannot fully contain the paint. The resulting forms hold themselves together while retaining the tactile conditions of their making.

Biography

I am an Adelaide-based Australian abstract artist. I hold a Bachelor of Contemporary Art and a Bachelor of Metallurgical Engineering from the University of South Australia. My final-year body of work, A Delicate Balance between Intention and Intuition, was selected for Hatched: National Graduate Exhibition 2024 at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. I was a 2024 Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE) Studio resident and received the Major Prize at the 2024 Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition. Other awards include the UniSA Creative Graduate Exhibition Prize (2023), the John Christie Wright Memorial Prize for Painting (2023), and the Friends of the South Australian School of Art Prize (2020).