Yasmin Smith (b. 1984, Darug Country/Sydney, Australia) works with ceramics and glaze technologies to produce large - scale sculptural installations that investigate particular sites through extensive field research, community collaboration and studio experimentation. Her practice brings scientific and artistic concerns together, allowing ecological forms of intelligence to be expressed through the aesthetic outcomes of ceramic glazes. Central to Smith’s practice is the development of glazes derived from specific plant ash and other locally sourced materials. The colours and textures that emerge in her ash glazes reveal what plants absorbed during their lifetime. In this way, the work reflects both the ecological and human histories of a place as elements present in the water, soil and air are taken up by the plant and retained as a kind of material memory or archive. Smith also works with rock, coal, salt and wild clay as part of an expanded material investigation that interrogates labour, extraction, colonisation and political ecology. Recently, Smith has developed processes for reverse engineering glaze materials, enabling the production of large - scale works from substances available only in very small quantities.
\nSmith has presented solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (2025 – 26) and Mosman Art Gallery (2023), and has participated in major international exhibitions including Lagos Biennial (2024), the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial (2021 – 22), Rethinking Nature at Museo Madre, Naples (2021), Sustaining Assembly at PAV, Turin (2021), Cosmopolis #2: rethinking the human at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019), Cosmopolis #1.5: enlarged intelligence, Chengdu (2018), and the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018). In 2024, Smith was awarded the Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, supporting her studies within the Master of Art and Ecology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her large - scale ceramic installations have been extensively acquired by major public institutions in Australia.
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