Nicola Smith

Based on Gadigal Country (Sydney), Nicola Smith is interested in the relationship between cinema and painting. The past six years she has looked to the work of Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman (Brussel 1950 - Paris 2015). Akerman’s early films from the 1970s depict quotidian scenes and repeated actions. Smith is drawn to Akerman’s characteristic long takes where the action moves in and out of frame as the camera stays still, or slowly pans. Akerman’s formal compositions, her use of repetition, and the languid depiction of time are apt subject matter for Smith’s paintings. I waited for me to believe in god or for you to send gloves for the cold (Je tu il elle) is a series of nine oil paintings on linen, made after Akerman’s first feature Je tu il elle (France/ Belgium 1974). Akerman wrote, directed, and starred in the movie at the age of twenty-four. Smith’s emphasis shifts with each quickly painted iteration - a pair of shoes and a scarf once outlined in the foreground become fully rendered, a brick wall in focus becomes a cursory blur, while the patterning of a mattress moves and flickers.