Smith’s ‘Static Field’ was a solo exhibition shown at Marsden Woo Gallery in England and Galerie Du Don in France during 2013. The pieces that make up ‘Static Field’ build on the results of earlier exhibited artworks by Smith: Two Corners (2011) and the works shown in ‘Pots – Plates – Chairs’ (2011).
Smith’s pieces further extend the potential of moiré effects across arrangements of bone china plates, with interference patterns becoming further complicated through their application to circular surfaces that are in part three-dimensional.
This original concept was extended by the development of related effects both across and around fully three-dimensional hand-thrown forms. The realisation of the final pieces entailed the design and manufacture of two ‘drawing machines’ capable of incising regular lines through unfired underglaze colour on horizontal forms that could be set to rotate off-centre, and vertical forms that rotate at an angle to the axis. Initial research was also undertaken on the development of these machines to carry a rotary diamond burr to engrave related forms made in glass.
Both the plate assemblages and free-standing pieces were exhibited in at Marsden Woo Gallery (2013). A selection of these works were subsequently exhibited at the ‘6th Festival of European Ceramic Sculpture’ at Galerie Du Don, Le Don du Fel, France (7 July–22 August 2013). A discussion of this work by Nigel Atkins was published in La Revue de la Ceramique et du Verre (2013). Atkins described Smith’s work thus: “Cette œuvre est une voix unique, un condensé rare, dont la pureté et la puissance sont une évidence. Il nous offre une sévérité voluptueuse, un jeu de contradictions protéiforme d’une élégance particulièrement raffinée”.