The body is a site of exploration, curiosity and ability; of challenge, frustration and possibility. Each body is individual, yet there is something that links us all: the sameness and variety that makes human existence profoundly, endlessly fascinating.

Embodied, the first iteration of Arts Project Australia’s new exhibition series, Limitless, sees artists Bronwyn Hack and Mark Smith create their most ambitious works yet, with the body at the centre of it all. “The curatorial premise is around the body not just as a subject, but as a way of working: imperfect, sensory, vulnerable, honest,” says curator Jo Salt.

Both artists have long-term relationships with Arts Project Australia—Smith has worked from the Melbourne-based studio since 2003, and Hack since 2011. Salt sensed that both artists were ready to “go bigger in their practice and take it to the next level, and explore what they’re capable of”—so they were named the inaugural recipients of the commission, which gives artists the opportunity to immerse themselves in long-form, large-scale projects with the support of mentors.

“There are moments in artists’ careers that feel a little bit pivotal,” Salt says, mentioning that Smith was included in the 2023 iteration of major exhibition Melbourne Now and had work acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria, and Hack recently had a solo show at commercial gallery Daine Singer.

“They’re working really ambitiously, and they work so beautifully together – their practices align in a lot of ways.”

That collaborative aspect is key to Arts Project Australia’s ethos. “Because we are both working on this project together and are in the studio on similar days, a close comradery has naturally formed,” Smith says. “Bronwyn has used some of my offcuts in her creations, adding to the great collaboration of us two extremely imaginative artists.”

These site-specific works show different ways of looking at and experiencing the body. Smith’s Body Cognition (2025) is an extension of his decades-long practice. It marks a new challenge for the multidisciplinary artist, who has worked in painting, ceramics, mixed media, video and soft sculpture—“a good chance to show my love of wordsmithing and visual art,” he says.

The five-metre-long quilted textile work includes contrasting materials, such as faux fur and pleather. In the centre is an outline of the artist’s own body, surrounded by hundreds of words related to human life experience. “The life-size me in the middle shows the potential of a human being,” Smith says. “As I started listening [to my intuition] more and more, as I thought of more [words], [it was] exponential… It was hard to just try and stop things or cut back.”

The artist ended up stitching over 300 words around his body, each of which will elicit different responses depending on the viewer’s own context, life experiences and interpretation. “Since the word groupings are not strictly connected or associated to any other group or classification, your linking can be as free and abstract as you choose—the viewer can apply their own personal connections and narratives with the fundamental words I’ve provided,” Smith says. “I see the entire display as more than a visual piece of artwork, reaching beyond the usual two-dimensional discipline—the creation of narratives feels automatic and limitless.”

Smith also contributes a second, smaller quilted work, Tell Me You Care (2025), which is deliberately asymmetrical in form. Salt says of Smith’s commissioned pieces for Embodied, “The work’s openness is its power—it embraces what it means to be profoundly human in all its messy complexities.”

Hack’s installation comprises sculptural forms referencing the body—as Salt describes it, a “beautiful melting of object and organ”. The heart, kidney, bladder, appendix and brain are all represented as soft, large textile forms hanging in a circular formation, with a mirror reflecting them back at themselves.

The circular form reflects the circle of life, and the recurring patterns in the human body.

“There’s circles on the body, orifices, your mouth, your eyes,” Salt says. “She very much wanted that to be the main component of the installation.”

On the gallery floor, three large, fluffy, breast-shaped forms add a splash of cheekiness. “Her works propose a radical reimagining of the body, not as a clinical subject or site of shame, but as complex, messy, beautiful and deserving of reverence,” Salt says. “She renders the corporeal as emotive, sensuous and deeply human.”

Through Embodied, and the ongoing Limitless commission series, Salt hopes to open the door further for neurodivergent artists and artists with intellectual disability. “If you have these opportunities, it really accelerates your practice and you’re really excited you can work towards something big,” she says. “The hope is to provide that opportunity where… boundaries [exist] in the art sector for neurodivergent artists, both in terms of the shows and the work that’s produced… I hope it gets to a point where the work from these series starts to be looked at as potential institutional acquisitions.”

Embodied: Limitless 2025 Commission Series
Arts Project Australia
(Melbourne/Naarm VIC)
Until 4 October

This article was originally published in the September/October 2025 print edition of Art Guide Australia.