School of Fine Art, Performance/Sculpture
Isobel Smith completed her MA in Sculpture / Performance at the Royal College of Art in 2017. Her practice crosses performance, sculpture and moving image, inhabiting a flickering state between rational and non-rational realities, to create powerful mash-ups, hybrid half-truths, not-quite-lies.
Isobel's work is in the Saatchi Collection, exhibited in ‘Known Unknowns’ at the Saatchi Gallery throughout 2018. She has performed at the Tate Modern in response to the Joan Jonas exhibition and at Performance Festivals in the UK and abroad. Isobel is a member of Royal Society of Sculptors and an experienced mentor and tutor.
Artist Statement
"Performance is at the root of my practice. I explore my surroundings viscerally, often by means of ridiculous or desperate actions designed to erase my rational head and reconnect with the nonhuman world, both external and within myself. Sometimes working with familiar everyday objects, or in nature and the countryside - always attempting to get closer - merging with the materials, to create and look out of the eyes of these strange hybrid forms.
Modern human conventions would have us walking down the middle of our lives, not stopping to sniff or lick it, or roll and rub up against it. Age and gender further close these norms and I’m passionate about using performance and sculpture to kick them up and shake off my tamed and ‘civilised’ self."
On Becoming Me (self portrait with pink blanket):
“Becoming Me (self portrait with pink blanket) marks the beginning of a practice that sits in inspirational conversation with my live work. In 2017 I plan to explore this relationship further, casting elements from my performances in bronze.
This photographic image is a still taken from a live performance using my body, a blanket, camera, projector and computer. The action was made and projected simultaneously via a mirroring program on my laptop. Movements and actions were made in response to the image projected live, with the aim of exploring and blurring the boundaries of what is familiar and what is ‘other’. It personifies the act of becoming, becoming familiar and becoming 'other', and everything in-between.
The still was selected by myself after the performance. Becoming Me (self portrait with pink blanket) captures a moment from a performance while moving beyond performance documentation to exist as an artwork in its own right.”
Year: 2016
Edition: 2/7
Image size: 60.8 x 45 cm
Direct print on Aluminium Dibond
