Across multiple galleries, rhythm wRites spans 30 years of Bigambul artist Leah King-Smith’s manifold art practice. Covering painting, photography, sound and animation, the process of immersive storytelling is a key part of King-Smith’s work and speaks to her love of combining mediums to create multi-layered visual narratives full of memory, intergenerational history and potent symbolism.
“I’m interested in the fluidity of nature and the way we can experience something that has gravitas and enormous cultural weight,” King- Smith says. “I am questioning where does that experience come from? Is it coming from ancestral knowledge, familial knowledge or textbook knowledge?”
Exploring this fluidity of nature is King-Smith’s 2018 photographic series Dreaming Mum again. Presented at QUT Art Museum as a tender and multi-layered reflection of the artist’s mother, Pearl, Dreaming Mum again was created using images originally captured by King-Smith’s father, Tom King. Utilising a camera, mirror, scanner and editing software, in this series King-Smith weaves delicate connections between nature and the human body, creating images that appear translucent, as though each layer blends into another. King-Smith calls this her “photography dreaming”, a process where she can create and capture a sense of higher resonance or spirituality within the visual image.
While the exhibition contains many of King-Smith’s past solo works, collaboration is at the heart of rhythm wRites. An entire gallery is devoted to collaborations with Yawuru artist Robert Andrew and Adelaide-based Barkindji photographer Nici Cumpston, while elsewhere, elements of sound and music are added via collaborations with writer EVN and singer Keely Eggmolesse.
In its entirety, King-Smith describes rhythm wRites as “an exploration of multimedia: sound, music, rhythm, moving, still and spatial”.
rhythm wRites
Leah King-Smith
QUT Art Museum
27 October—9 March 2025
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