Site-specificity is key to Perth-based artist Hayley Smith’s practice, given she uses the site as a canvas for her work. Executing large scale murals, Smith’s objective is to create works that are accessible to the wider community, engaging with and serving their audience. For Atomic Blast, which the artist painted alongside Susan Respinger, Smith looked to the history of the building she was using as a platform for her art. Though refurbished, The Cove is unmistakably from the 1960s, and this architectural heritage informed Smith’s approach to the piece. The complex now sports a nine-storey tall painting that embraces the glorious aesthetics of the Swinging Sixties. Never afraid of bright colours, Smith made sure to embrace the bold palette of the 60s in this work, retro modern starbursts delivering unapologetically loud doses of nostalgia. The rounded edges and soaring shapes of the Space Age mix with popular culture in this piece, the grinning ginger cat wielding a Jetsons-style laser gun as it cavorts amongst whorls of orange and red. Influenced by a childhood spent amongst nature in Port Stephens, Smith specialises in animals and it is therefore unsurprising that the cheeky characters she chose to animate her scene are of the furry kind.
Above: Hayley Smith & Susan Respinger, Atomic Blast – Commission for The Cove, 2023. Acrylic painting, 2,400 x 1,200cm. $45,000. COURTESY: THE ARTIST.