Deborah Smith - What the Trees Said

I grew up beneath a set of hills that were referred to as a giant. His name was Te Mata O Rongokako. He was supposedly a wild child who came unstuck chewing his way through the hills, trying to win over the local Chief's daughter.

When I was at Primary School, my father casually mentioned visits from Jack Frost on winter mornings. I imagined a tall thin man- a spiv in a white suit lurking outside and spraypainting our garden.

In Clive Square, walking home with my grandfather at twilight, he explained the great cacophony was just all the birds returning home for bedtime. Around this time, aspirational interiors for me were located in the base of trees. I dreamt of living in a tree with a gang of well dressed rabbits. What hope did I ever have then, to not fall under the spell of anthropomorphism?

The core of this show is a portrait of a tree that is profoundly important to me. The photograph was made on a rainy day this summer, under umbrellas & with two dogs in tow. My brother helped me.

But everything in this show, I made for my mother.

It's my punk pantheistic paean to her.

There are always trees- lie under one, climb one, give over to them- they'll show you the way.

Deborah Smith

Deborah Smith was born in Hastings, New Zealand in 1962. She attended Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland forty years ago on a Watties Scholarship. Her intention was to become a painter or sculptor, she has been making photographs ever since.
Her work has been shown in many public and private galleries but her favourite site is possibly the street. In 1999, she and her brother Mark Smith plus Tori Ferguson formed the CAKE Collective, which was committed to exhibiting large posters on city hoardings.

Some of her other personal highlights have been Green Man with Mark Smith and John Reynolds at the Black Barn Gallery in Hawkes Bay, The Smiths with her whole family at the Snowwhite Gallery in Auckland and Portrait of a Marriage at Auckland’s Gus Fisher Gallery.

She has enjoyed a long working relationship and friendship with Marilyn Sainty and in 2000 they collaborated on Dust Cloak for the Napier Museum. It was later shown at the Auckland Art Gallery. She has taught for many years, mostly at Unitec, Auckland and St Cuthbert’s College in Auckland. In 2008 she initiated Cloud Workshop, an ongoing art project for bereaved children.

She lives in Auckland with her husband Nicholas Stevens & their Italian Greyhound - Nina Simone.