After more than five amazing years in Glebe it is with mixed emotions that we announce Salerno Gallery will be moving to a new space. Glebe has been absolutely wonderful […]
Clay Smith
Clay along with his younger brother was raised by two artists as parents, whose art lineage goes back at least four generations in Melbourne. His great-grandfather Billy Churches was a stagecoach painter and billboard designer. His Grandmother Melba Mansfield was a nationally touring Acrobatic dancer in the 1920′s Vaudeville circuit. His dad Doug Smith is a retired music teacher and was a professional Jazz Musician on the Melbourne music scene from the 1950′s through till the end of the 1980′s. His mum is Melbourne Water-colour and Oil artist Elizabeth Mansfield, ex-president of the Malvern Artists Society in Melbourne, who teaches art privately and still exhibits regularly.
Clay is a contemporary artist influenced by pop art, poster art, manga, storybook illustration, stencil street and abstract in his paintings and felt sculpture installations. With a vivid and overt use of colour Clay is never conformed to a singular method of operation as an artist. There are many concepts discussed within the framework of each series he paints. These vary vastly ranging from the divisiveness of humanity that gives rise to ideology slaying in the cult graphic novel Jargon Slayer. The satirical optimistic pacifism and iconic war propaganda subversion of the Warmongering Bunnies in the face of a brutal dismal tide of the global military partnerships of our planet. Also the aesthetic elements in many traditional cultures that unify and impact us deeply in Cultural Tempest.
ZZZ’s Quention Ellison Interviewing Clay Smith August 2013.