Wagbo leaps screaming from a ladies kitchen cupboard in ‘Mad Cats and English Women’. Painting

Anna FC Smith is an artist and curator based in Wigan, UK. My practice is concerned with pinpointing ritual, carnival and transgressive space within contemporary culture. Specific subjects dictate the media I use to translate these echoes of tradition. These traditions can be celebratory activities or socially formulated coping mechanisms developed to comprehend the complexity of human existence; these are mechanisms used to punctuate, celebrate and lend meaning to life, such as seasonal festivals or folk rites. I am fascinated by their inherent humour and irreverence, which at the point of being completely silly seem to hold an innate wisdom. I appreciate the chain that links us to our predecessors and the fundamentally unchanged reality of humanity. Through my practice I seek to identify and understand these rituals and consider them within a contemporary context.