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Unnamed Saints 2023

The solo presentation at Coleman Projects, London (May/June 2023) marked the culmination of work and research begun during my time as Bridget Riley Fellow at the British School Rome (2021/22) and coincided with my residency at St John’s College Oxford. 

The exhibition was comprised of two parts, a central film work anchored by a reworking of the installation DETRITUS, originally formulated in Rome, the prints and drawings also feature in the film. The primary installation of drawings appear to spill out of the walls and grow in fragments across the ground. The drawings offer a petri-dish view of “unswept floors” and what might have littered them over time. Shaped like animal skins, they bear the evidence of all manner of historically loaded and scattered remnants: relics, gilded bones, walnuts and bodily traces. 

Lara Smithson.jpg

Remus, 2023, Pencil, soft pastel, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric

The film imagines a dead saint’s return to earth to find her body “scattered, torn apart, spread so thin, untraceable”. She lists all the ways it has been erased - endlessly replicated, worshipped and desecrated - her voice travelling through different periods and locations in Italy’s history. LINK TO VIDEO

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Installation view of Unnamed Saint, 2022, 4K video 00:06:50 

Installed with Relics, 2022/23, Reactive dye prints on silk, walnuts, crowns, moths, pencil, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric

Lara Smithson

Installation view of Unswept #2, 2023, Pencil, soft pastel, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric 

with Their voices dying down, 2023, Pencil, soft pastel, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric 

Lara Smithson

Installation view of Unswept #2, detail, 2023, Pencil, soft pastel, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric 

Lara Smithson

Their voices dying down, 2023, Pencil, soft pastel, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric

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Installation view of Unnamed Saint, 2022, 4K video 00:06:50 

Installed with Relics, 2022/23, Reactive dye prints on silk, walnuts, crowns, moths, pencil, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric

Lara Smithson

Relics, 2022/23, Reactive dye prints on silk, walnuts, crowns, moths, pencil, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric

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Relics, 2022/23, Reactive dye prints on silk, walnuts, crowns, moths, pencil, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric

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Relics, 2022/23, Reactive dye prints on silk, walnuts, crowns, moths, pencil, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric

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Installation view of Unnamed Saint, 2022, 4K video 00:06:50 

Installed with Relics, 2022/23, Reactive dye prints on silk, walnuts, crowns, moths, pencil, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric

relic2.jpg

Installation view of Unnamed Saint, 2022, 4K video 00:06:50 

Installed with Relics, 2022/23, Reactive dye prints on silk, walnuts, crowns, moths, pencil, aluminium and imitation gold leaf on reflective fabric

Lara Smithson

Wish, 2023, Pencil, variegated metal leaf on reflective fabric

Unnamed Saint, excerpt, 2022, 4K video 00:06:50 

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