Ken Smith

Born in Melbourne in 1951, Ken studied at the Victorian College of the Arts form where he obtained undergraduate and postgraduate awards; he also has a Master of Arts from Monash University. Since graduating Ken has created imagery with drawing, painting and printmaking processes, has held fourteen solo exhibitions and being included in eighty-two group exhibitions. Ken has also had research papers published in international journals and forums.
The sustaining stimulus for all this investigative activity has been the phenomena of light as the revelatory agent for the forms, spaces, colours and atmospheres of the visible world.

In 2014 Ken concluded a long career as a Lecturer in Drawing within the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University. He has subsequently completed residencies at The National Art School Sydney, The Bundanon Trust, Illaroo and The Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ireland. He has works in private collections around the world, The Ballinglen Museum of Contemporary Art, Ireland and in the following public collections in Australia: – Artbank, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Bundaberg Arts Centre, Commonwealth Bank, Devonport Gallery and Arts Centre, Grafton Regional Gallery, Mornington Penisula Regional Gallery, Leeuwin Estate, McPhersons Ltd, The Hutchins School Hobart.

While a student at the Victorian College of the Arts, Ken was awarded the Hugh Ramsay Portrait Prize; in 1994 had two drawings purchased by the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery from the 11th Biennial Spring Festival of Drawing, and in 2012 was awarded the Rick Amor Drawing Prize at the Art Gallery of Ballarat.