Jacob Ogden Smith is a Visual Artist based in Sawyers Valley in the Perth Hills. His practice explores the implications of a modern world upon archaic, slow making cultural processes and art forms and the synergies that exist between various materials, processes and socio- political systems.
Following his completion of Honours in Fine Art in 2010 at Curtin University, Perth, Jacob has exhibited consistently on a national scale, including several solo projects: Pottery Three Ways at Fremantle Art Centre in 2013 and at 55 Sydenham Rd, Marrickville in 2014; Hovea Pottery Ale: Quite a Few Bottles, Some Large Pots and a Video, 2012, at OK Gallery, Northbridge; Purple Rain/Wine O the Times in 2012 at the Museum of Natural Mystery, North Perth; Pottery Practice Project, Craft Victoria, Melbourne, 2012; and HOW WORKS at the Perth Town Hall, Perth, in 2009. He has featured work in numerous group exhibitions such as Getting Things Done, Fontanelle Gallery, Adelaide, in 2015; Here&Now 2012 at Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, Perth; and Metallic at Spectrum Project Space, Perth, the latter two both in 2012.
Jacob’s work is included in the collections of The Art Gallery of Western Australia and Shepparton Art Museum in Victoria as well as many private collections.
Artist’s statement about the work:
“I have been interested in DIY culture ever since I left home and started making homebrew, at 50 cents a longneck it was a prudent financial decision. Much of my art has also had an element of practicality or functionality about it. In the past I’ve made work that doubled as furniture and my interest in utility drew me to ceramics. Over the past two years I have moved to the Perth hills, started a market garden and have begun making my own cheese and wine. All this along with my recent nicotine addiction has influenced me heavily. The main body of work I have made for the John Stringer Prize is a series of pots shaped as countries considered as tax havens, in which I am growing tobacco plants. For me growing Tobacco that has a current excise duty of $763 per kilo is the perfect confluence of self- sufficiency, libertarianism and tax evasion.
“I recently watched the film Wall Street in which the main character Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) likes to smoke Cuban cigars, more specifically Cohibas. I’m not sure if it’s just a coincidence but Rene Rivkin also smoked Cohibas and (Spoiler Alert) they were also both jailed for insider trading.
“In 2014 the Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and then Treasurer Joe Hockey were filmed smoking cigars outside the Treasury building 4 days before announcing what was considered a rather austere budget. These prints are part of a larger series that documents many a politician’s penchant for cigars.”