Glasgow based artist Sandy Smith has exhibited extensively in Europe on exchanges, residencies and with solo and group shows. He spent the latter part of 2008 touring America with exhibitions in Seattle, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and a residency in Utah at TUAC. He has previously exhibited alongside Jim Lambie, Ceryth Wyn-Evans and Douglas Gordon in Glasgow as well as at Collective Gallery Edinburgh, The Royal Scottish Academy.
Combining lengthy processes of making, using household and everyday materials, with an irreverent and flippant sense of humour, Sandy creates objects which are both mischievous and inspiring. By demoting The Work Of Art to whimsical, albeit hard-wrought, decoration he makes reference to our historical quest to search for meaning, exploring an emphatic human belief in hope. Highlighting the naivety, as well as the beauty, of optimism he creates an undercurrent of romance, referencing Émile Coué's mantra “Every day in every way I am getting better and better”. Using text in the work as well as specific titles such as, “All the time I was making this I was thinking of you.”, Sandy creates an intimate/ one-to-one relationship between the viewer and the work, partnering romantic failure with a more grandiose utopia, and accepting failure as inherent to human endeavour.
Sandy exhibited as part of Where Beats This Human Heart and his show PURE LOVE was made specifically for the old Unit 3 gallery space.
