Diana Baker Smith is an artist who works at the intersection of performance and moving image. Her artistic practice examines the politics of art history through methods of archival research, collaboration, embodiment, and fiction. She lives on Gadigal land in Sydney and is a Lecturer in the School of Art & Design at the University of New South Wales.
Baker Smith’s recent solo exhibitions include She Speaks in Sculpture at UTS Art Gallery (2022), The Lost Hour at Contemporary Art Tasmania (2022), and Tasks yet to be composed for the occasion at Artspace (2021). She is a founding member of the art collective Barbara Cleveland, whose works are held in collections including Artbank, Art Gallery of NSW, Museum of Contemporary Art, Monash University Museum of Art and Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art. Baker Smith’s solo and collaborative works have been presented as part of major group exhibitions including Circles of Dialogue, La Trobe Art Institute, Bendigo (2023); Know My Name: Australian Women Artists at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2021); Australia: Antipodean Stories at the Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan (2020); the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Divided Worlds (2018); and the 20th Biennale of Sydney: The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed (2016).
Baker Smith is the recipient of the 2024 Judy Wheeler Commission and is currently working on solo exhibitions for Perth Institute of Contemporary Art and Penrith Regional Gallery.
mail@dianabakersmith.com
Diana Baker Smith and Kate Blackmore, Brief Illuminations Between Interruptions, 2022, Single channel 4K video, 13:12 minutes. Photo: Anna Hay