Portrait of Tracey-Maree Smith Photograph

Finalist in the Wynne Prize for 2016. I engage in art as an attempt to bypass the intellectual, to tear apart and peel back the self imposed veneer—almost brutally at times. And, with hope, reveal a consciousness that has no predetermined idea or thought sequence. I want to eliminate the falseness and limited intelligence of thought and expose the beauty and truth of feeling and absolute knowing which comes from the heart. The process I use is a metaphor for my own continual transformation. I begin my expression with excessively thick layers of paint and colour as representations of ego and identity. This process has no real basis in reality but is a construct of my beliefs— both cultural and personal. The initial layering of paint is a quick, reckless process tinged with fear, doubt and calculation, again a metaphor for life's moments...but it is the courage to remove the initial unconscious past that gives my art depth and connectedness. I then attempt to peel back these false layers using the often harsh, graceless process of elimination. This is where time consumes me—within the very physical process that is my transformational practice. Sometimes it is painful, and emotionally revealing. At other times it is joyful, passionate and tender. My ultimate desire is to connect, to myself primarily and to live and create without regret or fear of consequence.