Laura Smith trained at The Slade School of Fine Art where she won the Clare Winsten Memorial Award, graduating from her MFA in 2012. A still-life painter working towards the abstract tradition, she is interested in dissolving our familiarity with everyday objects. Her current work explores the idea that repeated motifs enable a deeper and freer investigation of the objects themselves. The paintings often depict emotive gestures and actions, where objects take the place of the loved, the abandoned and the closely held.
Smith’s work has been included in group shows such as Efflorescence, 155A Gallery, 2020; Ruth Borchard Prize Exhibition, Piano Nobile Kings Place, 2019; Small is Beautiful, Flowers Gallery, 2018; and Spring Exhibition, Rebecca Hossack Gallery, 2018. She was shortlisted for the Threadneedle Prize in 2011 and 2016, and was awarded the Richard Ford Award from the Royal Drawing School in 2004.