RSA 2024 GRADUATES

2024BA → Ireland Smither

Claire, acrylic, oil paint, oil pastel and charcoal on primed canvas,
1m × 1m, 2023.

Ireland Smither

BA in Art and Psychology

With a background in feminist research my practice playfully explores an essence of girlhood, womanhood and my twenties; the emotions, complications and incredible, simple, ordinary events that occur living as a woman. Captured primarily through abstract portraiture and videography, I take reference from Helen Frankenthaler, Daisy Parris, and Cinema Verité. For the majority, women in art, women captured in art, and women in general, stir political connotations. My practice seeks to explore anything but. It seeks to explore a life of things – a life of femininity, fervent passions, platonic love, living tomorrow and the next day as women. My paintings are characterised by a highly articulated sense of colour, dimension, shape, and texture. They reject superfluous connotations and convey emotion, personality, and character through the drama of their basic elements. My videography captures what cannot be captured in oil or acrylic. Harmoniously married together, canvas and film, they create a landscape of shared female experience, secrets, and comfortability.

Claire (close–up).
You would love this, acrylic, oil paint, oil pastel and charcoal on raw canvas, 177cm × 236cm, 2024.
Pinky Promises on the Playground, acrylic, oil paint, oil pastel and charcoal on raw canvas, 76cm × 50cm, 2024.
Installed, (far left) Pinky Promises in the Playground, 76cm × 50cm, (top right) Spilt, 30cm × 40cm, (bottom right) I worship the temple of Amphictyonis,
50cm × 101cm, acrylic, oil paint, oil pastel and charcoal on raw canvas, 2024.

Check out other artists