Biography

Nicole Page-Smith was born in Adelaide, Australia in 1967. Having graduated from RMIT
(Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) University, in Melbourne, 1988, Page-Smith’s first
exhibition success occurred in the early 1990’s exhibiting alongside the late American artists,
Philip Guston, Harvey Quaytman and Jake Berthot, exhibiting sculpture. Earlier artworks
described a process of thought transition from a conscious state to a passage of the
unknown where dream starts or the unconscious and a philosophy of place, begin. Found
objects seemed to represent a neo-conceptualism and the environment of materials often
found in skips, nearby or on a riverbank. Whereas steel or glass as sculpture materials were
very experiential of the city studio, views and skyscrapers. The visual materiality of a walk
down the street or the view out the studio window, visual information barely registering in
the conscious mind. Page-Smith’s early introduction to the Melbourne CBD was working in
studio spaces in office buildings and old, storage, warehouses.

Exhibition invitations continued through the nineties with Page-Smith exhibiting in
contemporary art venues such as MUMA (Monash University of Art) and Heide MoMA
(Museum of Modern Art) in Melbourne. Page-Smith continued with her focus on a variety of
media including sculpture, painting, drawing and photography whereby the mediums were
blurred into sculptured drawings, painted sculpture and photographs of the studio,
environment. Making art for a decade in Melbourne saw a move to a new country, New
Zealand, where the availability of old buildings for studio space was the main attraction. The
studio environment encompassed an old factory for larger artworks made of stone and
plaster, similar materials to earlier artworks but on a larger scale. Earlier sculpture of hessian
and wire soon transformed into steel rod and canvas. Concrete forms became bulky, and the
sculptural environment filled every corner of the studio. Piles of drawings continued to stack
up as the artistic vision continued.

Photographing the studio environment became an artwork-in-itself and a studio kitten
bouncing around the sculptures led to subsequent photographs experimenting with a
passage in time or form. Travelling to Europe several times during the last twenty years,
Page-Smith, took the camera on some journeys as an artistic medium of expression and
beyond straight tourism, predominately, photographing, art. While other photographs
recorded subjects closer to home, the moody skies of winter, the gardens, the sea, any
flotsam and jetsam, debris, found in the studio or the studio artworks, themselves. Page-
Smith suggests the overseas, contemporary, photography, exhibitions viewed of note,
included, Cindy Sherman, William Eggleston and Wolfgang Tillmans and other inspiration
was found in artbooks.

Writing was introduced to Page-Smith’s oeuvre some ten years ago resulting in a book being
published in 2022 of photographs and an essay called Heaven. Several books were written
during the following years and the practice of writing has become an important part of
Nicole’s studio life. Painting is another media, Page-Smith has redressed in the last five years
having some thirty-year, interval. Page-Smith finds the multimedia experience of writing,
painting, sculpting and drawing contributes to her photography. Often the drawn line seems
like the path etched forward in photography or paintings are reminiscent of printmaking.
The scholarly practice of researching, art history whether it be photography or other
artforms does tend to linger in the background of Page-Smith’s artwork whereby old camera
film photography is an acquired look and although, emulating the past, also talks of the
future.

Nicole Page-Smith has been practicing art for several decades and although, early
exhibitions of reference, in Melbourne, included Louise Bourgeois and Rembrandt,
inspiration also came from American and European, art magazines. Moving to New Zealand
to a quaint old Scottish town, Dunedin, in late 2000, meant a different perspective in Page-
Smith’s work and the influence of a place very set in England. Page-Smith finds when you fly
directly from Dunedin to London, you feel as though you are in the same place, and you may
as well have caught a taxi from the suburbs. Literature has also played an important role in
Page-Smith’s work. Reading the ancient classics during the 1990’s meant references in the
Dunedin Public Library of Ancient Greek and Roman art were the theme behind early New
Zealand work. Classical literature prevailed and artworks started also acquiring titles from
Shakespeare or philosophers such as Plato or Descartes. Dunedin is a good place to do a lot
of reading.

Travel meant a closer look at other much-loved periods of the history of art and Italian
Renaissance art is also a passion of Nicole Page-Smith’s scholarly interests. The Springtime of
the Renaissance exhibition in the Louvre in Paris, Page-Smith found to be the most gratifying
of the Italian sculpture exhibitions, experienced. Among others were Northern Renaissance
exhibitions of Durer and Van der Weyden in Frankfurt, Germany. Music was also at the
background of trips to Vienna for the opera and classical music. Page-Smith finds herself
visiting the major museums of great cities daily, so the yearly pass is much needed for a two-week
stay in Vienna. Most London museums are free, but Nicole finds herself in The National Gallery or the Louvre in Paris, every day of a visit to these cities.

Books have been further inspiration when travel was not made possible through external,
extremities. The humble artbook has been Page-Smith’s savior in more recent years as well.
Page-Smith does not feel quite so distanced from exhibitions when able to view the
catalogue and also enjoys the solitude of reading. The pleasure of viewing art books makes
the experience of owning books worthy. French photography books on artists such as Atget,
Brassai and Brancusi are much loved volumes in Page-Smith’s library. American photography
is also of interest where New Zealand, exhibitions and the internet fail to inform. However,
volumes of sculpture and old masters are the soul of the bookshelves, photography is still at
the heart. Artbooks are a consumable item and a much-needed resource for any artist.

More recent work of Page-Smith deals with the void where the information highway of
media tends to have her embrace traditions, favouring her old 35mm camera and
experimenting with color film preferring the kind of technicolor look of the seventies or
black and white photography to digital film. Likewise, reems of painting and drawing have a
darkened palette and demonstrate a more spiritual relationship to the world. The look back
is systematic of our times and Page-Smith’s reminiscences may be related to trying to tackle
twentieth century, literature. However, the current consciousness of feeling recalls medieval
times and although, we have suffered nothing like the Black Death plague with modern
medicine, the medieval superstition of an unknown disease seems to provide a similar,
unstable, future. Volumes of literature about ancient times from Classical Ancient Greece to
spiritual texts of the life of Saints and the Moon Landing have frequented bookshops and,
libraries for years as though a premonition of a major catastrophe, ensued. Anything from
art about our physical body to reading Tarot cards, misfits, visionaries and mystics, appears
to have been the subject of major art events like the Venice Biennale for over a decade and
although, Page-Smith feels like an old sage sitting in New Zealand making her artwork, the
problems of modern life are a worldwide concern to the point of being biblical.

American culture also dominates former decades of Page-Smith’s sculpture in New Zealand
coming out of Australia and large plaster figurative sculptures tend to take on a Disney
quality in their cartoonish, rendering. The reflection of prior places lived is often more
prevalent away from an environment than within but as though the gods of the island, New
Zealand, where at the fore, Page-Smith also advocated a mythology or her own. Climate
change and island weather reminds us of Ancient Greek or Roman literature, in New
Zealand, while giant seabirds and albatross wheel around in the sky. Page-Smith’s work takes
on a biblical feeling of its own sometimes communicating visionary ideas of time and place.
The apocalypse of an end of the world felt more life threatening in the Southern Hemisphere
to the point of the light being in the shadow of the sun for a decade prior to any pandemic
or current wars and the mood of New Zealand has been sombre. Page-Smith’s sculptures
started to also lose matter and flesh as though decaying in appearance and Nicole stopped
sculpting for a decade to write, draw, paint and take photographs.

The intuited philosophy of Page-Smith’s artistic activities and writing have culminated in an
accumulation of work large enough to fill her own universe. Mostly, Page-Smith’s own
private business Harris Smith Art consumes all the work from her practice or for public
exhibitions, but the working studio is a place of refuge. Artistic endeavor continues to be
the focus of Page-Smith’s life-long dedication to the arts along with writing and a rhetoric of
practice. Future endeavors include publishing more books of her own writing, photography
and artworks with continued studio practice. Page-Smith’s participation in the arts continues
to be her thriving motivation and joy.