Henry Smith

Biography

Henry Smith is an Artist Sculptor and Teacher who started his career in Melbourne where he worked at the Melbourne Theatre Com as head of props for five years, and worked as a set designer for Victoria State Opera’s contemporary music season. He was a successful free-lance Sculptor for nineteen years and worked for a variety of clients. The Opera, Ballet, TV, and film organizations and various individual commissions. Later he came under the spell of the desert of Central Australia. The move was initiated by the love of the ancient geological landscape of rugged ranges, vast spaces, water-holes, ghost gums, blue sky and red earth- a primordial land. It’s not surprising that this country became the focus of many paintings and drawings. His interest is in exploring the landscape around Alice Springs with a view to looking at what compositional elements constitute this land and how to arrange them in a way that treads the line between abstraction and representation. His passion is in finding ways through color, shape, texture, and space that create a slightly skewed and different way of presenting his experience of the landscape. Already there exists so many traditional images of this landscape and the challenge is to find new ways through the use of abstraction techniques to bring excitement to this endeavor.

Research Interest

My passion is Visual Art, the practice of making art, the history of art, and contemporary movements in art. These all form a foundation to my teaching and supervision, and my ability to stay current with what’s happening in the art world.