Elemental Life

Yasmin Smith (b. 1984, Sydney) creates ambitious sculptural installations working with the medium of ceramics. The development of her works involves extensive field research, community collaboration and technical experimentation. Key to Smith’s practice is her analysis and burning of mineral and plant materials to create glazes for her ceramic forms. These glazes bear unique chemical traces that, through her work, articulate the history, ecology and geology of different environments.

Yasmin Smith: Elemental Life is the artist’s most significant solo exhibition to date. It features the major wall-based installation Seine River Basin, 2019, commissioned by Centre Pompidou, Paris, and acquired for the MCA Collection in 2020. The installation is presented alongside new and recent works linked by their investigations of waterways, river systems and deep geological time.