Collection: 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.