Artist and Educator
Hybrid practice across drawing, photography, writing and artists books
About
Dr. Rachel Smith
I am an artist and educator with a practice across Drawing, Photography, and Writing. My work meanders through existing texts, fragmenting narratives, using association, error, and distraction in a generative manner. In doing so, spaces are produced to materialise elements of the reading process which explore the construction of sense for this reader.
The action of Reading as Writing as Making is termed — read(writ)ing — a method I developed as part of my Ph.D research. This term defines my practice which cuts together-apart processes related to reading/ writing/ making to reveal how sense might be sought, rejected, and re-fused.
I am interested in the production of artist books, and using the page space to explore hybrid image and text experiments.
EDUCATION:
Ph.D. (Practice led Fine Art),
Drawing out Language: From Or to And, Disrupting Dualism through Conceptual Poetics.
Sheffield Hallam University, DOS: Dr. Sharon Kivland, (2020)
MA Fine Art, Sheffield Hallam University, (2013)
PGCE, Bretton Hall, (1995)
BA(Hons), Fine Art, Staffordshire University, (1994)
LECTURING & TUTORING:
University of Creative Arts
Distance Learning through the Open College of the Arts, (2014-current)
Programme Tutor for Creative Arts HE4 - HE6
Flexible Photography tutor HE4 - HE6
Course Developer across all stages
Visiting Artist at Bolton University 2022
Artist talk with Vispo workshop using digital and physical methods of collage and indesign techniques
Wales High School (1997-2022)
Subject Leader Photography
Teacher of Art
MFA Indesign Workshop for Writing Art module, Sheffield Hallam University, (2016 and 2018)
MA Photoshop workshop, Sheffield Hallam University, (2013)
RECENT RESIDENCIES, EXHIBITIONS, AND PUBLICATIONS:
Promise the Infinite: Drawing out Babel, published by PenteractPress (2022)
Writing a Rhizomatic Self, creative-critical article published by Babel Tower Noticeboard (2020)
Read(writ)ing Words: a meandering dialogue, published by Penteract Press (2020)
Catching Sight of the Salt Cellar, included in the Anthology Salon for a Speculative Future, edited by Monica Oechsler, published by MA Bibliotheque (2020)
Interrupteur: Artist residency at the faculty of Humanities the University of Sheffield, (2018)
http://residencyinterrupteur.blogspot.com
This was a two month residency working with Artists and Academics from the Humanities dept. to forge conversations and collaborations between practice and research ideas.
Artist Residency, part of the Leeds College of Art Library Intervention project, (2015)
Roland Barthes’s Party, with Roland Barthes Reading Group, published by MA Bibliotheque (Jun 2020)
Interviewed for the Penteract Poetry Podcast (Apr 2020)
Catching sight of the Salt cellar, photographic text work, included in the group show: Salon for a Speculative Future exhibition, Chisenhale Studios, London (Mar 2020)
Promise the infinite, ink drawing, included in group show for Prosaic II at Bloc Studios, Sheffield (Oct 2019)
Lines that Echo, included in Sheffield Dostoyevsky Cities Anthology ed. Emma Bolland (Oct 2019)
Eco's Net: Rhizome I, ink drawing, included in group show Prosaic at Coterie Gallery, Rotherham (Jun 2019)
And And And, visual poem included in the Penteract Anthology Concrete and Constraint Anthology (Oct 2018)
Voler: to Steal and Fly, pamphlet work published by Penteract Press (Sept 2018)
The Desire for Haiku, with Roland Barthes Reading Group published by MA Bibliotheque (Mar 2018)
Lines of Flight, artists book, published as part of the AMBruno [sic] project (Mar 2017)
Reading Words, artists book, published as part of the AMBruno words project (Mar 2016)