Inspired by the vast, beautiful complexity of being alive, Carla Smith believes play is crucial and something that should be extended beyond childhood. Her current focus of making is centred around food. Exploring the social narratives and nuanced landscape that meals allow for, her work embodies the tender, celebratory moments that can be shared by the act of having a meal. Her practice encourages audience interaction through multisensory experiences, such as allowing the audience to consume, touch and physically be a part of the artwork. Strongly influenced by her own upbringing where food was the core of all social interactions, she believes that the meal is a powerful social tool. As our primitive needs are met, vulnerability allows genuine conversation and connection, an openness which has the ability to invite interesting and complex art environments. With deep roots into our interaction with the world, the meal is a moment that should be cared for and nurtured.
Sugo is a recipe book gathering instructions for a few of the dishes and techniques recurring throughout the exhibition, as well as documentation of the pasta-making workshop that formed the first public iteration of the project. The recipes have been passed on to the artist from generations through her family, and are at once intimate and personal, yet gathered here to be shared, together with stories and memories.
The book gathers all the printmaking techniques the artist has explored throughout her Graduate Artist Residency at peacock & the worm.
With photography by Phoebe McBride.
Paper Size: 20 x 14.5 cm
Pages: 46
Medium: mixed-media book (Risograph, screenprinting, cyanotype, etching, laser cutting) on Loop Husk 298gsm, Context Birch 140 gsm and Context Stone 225gsm papers
Edition Size: 25
Year: 2023