​​​​​​​Tracy Smith

Portfolio - Fresco 

Chalkware is traditionally gypsum figurines, and was originally created in the 18th century. The gypsum is painted with watercolour. I have used this traditional technique and combined with a transfer/printing medium to create paintings/sculptures that address contemporary issues. In 2008 I won the Fleurieu Peninsular Vista prize with three little panels called Mapping Histories. The judges were Betty Churcher, Philip Wolfhagen, and Geofrey Cassidy. Here there is a palimpsest of maps and ideas, which represents the archeology of histories scrambled with knowledge. Hindmarsh Island is a place where several people’s histories have mingled; the landscape is a construct for existential contemplation. Traces of existence become geologically embedded. Memories are especially vulnerable to pressure, they metamorphose and fossilise over time, folding and shifting into ever deeper layers, sometimes being pushed to the surface by unseen forces. Placing maps on top does not change the history or the ownership, maps attempt to define a place, they are theoretical constructs that imply ownership and knowledge of a place but it is only superficial knowledge. It is not the naming of these sites that makes them sacred or spiritual it is the place itself and not just the outer layer of that place. The maps and names only sit on top, they fray and disintegrate at the edges. They are a hypothetical, superficial convention to locate you in the universe and they define a place only on one level.