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Mandy Smith - BA (Hons) Fine Art 2018 Graduate from Solent University, Southampton

Statement

Mandy Smith is a Southampton based artist, her work focusing largely on familial interactions, from the small every day, seemingly insignificant events that happen whilst bringing up children to the sometimes overwhelming feelings of loss – covering birth, illness and death.

After being given the all clear from a rare form of cancer - Synovial Sarcoma, followed a few years later by the death of her mother from breast cancer, prompted Mandy Smith to embark on a lifelong ambition to change her career from I.T. to contemporary art. 

 

Her work emerges from moments and feelings of experiences with the maternal: examining details of the past between herself and her children and also the relationship with her mother. Combining elements of different memories, Smith distorts her past, making a patchwork to convey a feeling.

 

Mixing a desire to learn new processes, Smith mirrors the content of her work, repeating known processes whilst simultaneously introducing novel new approaches in order to enrich her practice. Materials and technical aspects of work by woman artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Annette Messager and Sarah Lucas have been an inspiration.

Smith’s choice of materials is modest, often using clothing and stuffed toys, sourced from the domestic setting, reworked by the artist to unsettling effect. Through intervention in scale or material quality, Smith navigates a space between bodily and monstrosity.

Education 

2015 - 2018

First BA (Hons) Fine Art, Solent University

Awards

2022

Printmaking Prize for Northam Cubes, Southampton City Art Gallery Open 'What Does Culture Mean to You'

Exhibitions 

Solo

2020

Fruiting, Site-specific window installation, Hidden Wardrobe, Aspace, Southampton

2019

Local artist, Make Your Mark, Solent Showcase Gallery, Southampton

2019

2018

Tanoptic, K6 Gallery, Southampton

Genes, The Art House Cafe, Southampton

Group

2022

2022

2022

2022

2021

2021

2020

2019

2019

2018

2018

2018

Lucky Dip Exhibition, God's House Tower, Southampton

Southampton City Art Gallery Open 'What Does Culture Mean to You'

Dystopia Holdings Exhibition, Zest Arts Collective, Alfred Arms, Southampton

Cutting a Fine Line, Cowprint Artist Group, God's House Tower, Southampton

Navigating a New World, Cowprint Artist Group, God's House Tower, Southampton

Signs of the Times, Zest Arts Collective, Old Northam Road, Southampton

Mango Chutney, Group Virtual Exhibition, Alfred Arcades, Southampton

Banana Split, Graduate Group Exhibition, Alfred Arcades, Southampton

Made in Southampton, Group Exhibition, ReSo, Southampton

Banana Bread, Graduate Group Exhibition, Alfred Arcades, Southampton

Ripe Bananas 2, Graduate Group Exhibition, Alfred Arcades, Southampton

Emerging Artist Group Exhibition, Forest Arts Centre, New Milton, Hampshire  

2018

26° Below Bar, Group Degree Show, Below Bar Studios, Southampton

2018

Look a Little Closer, Group Exhibition, Winchester Gallery, Park Avenue, Winchester

2018

Chaiya Art Awards, Group Exhibition, Oxo Gallery, South Bank, London

2017

Emerging Artist Group Exhibition, Forest Arts Centre, New Milton, Hampshire

2017

Group 2nd Year Degree Uncontained Exhibition, Guildhall Square, Southampton        

2017

2016

City & Life, Group Fine Art Exhibition, Chongqing Restate College, China                

Southampton Pride of Place Project, Southampton                                                     

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