Lara Smithson

Lives and works in London, UK

Artist statement

Lara Smithson is an artist and researcher, she is currently an ACME live-work resident at the Fire Station in London. Her practice investigates historical and contemporary contradictions between health, ritual, religious fervour and guilt, divine and political power, and the impact of these discrepancies on the human condition. Smithson’s process isn’t linear but rather cyclical, her drawings, texts and sculptures having multiple lives and uses, becoming costume, character, prop or backdrop, within videos and installations. Drawings have acted as skins, veils, anatomical and neurological maps, which through their installation become sculptural resembling ‘unswept floors’, figures or as costumes, worn and performed by dancers. Smithson’s practice is informed by lived experience of chronic illness and her works engage with research into the history of health alongside psychology, miracles and myths that are simultaneously eroded, created and embellished throughout time. “Humans move through a series of gestures and decisions that are choreographed by our nature and society. Stepping out of these poses a risk. My works unravel the brain and body’s transitional states, unconscious decisions and impulses. I activate psychological drawn and printed landscapes through means of physical ones, using both performers and myself within videos and installations as narrators or vessels.” Lara Smithson (b. 1993) lives and works in London. She is currently a live/work resident at ACME...

Artwork