Lotte Alexis Smith

Originally studying print making, Lotte Alexis Smith expanded her practice to include illustration, mural art and workshops. The content of her art varies across mediums from intricate narratives to playful character studies often creating surreal representations of lived experiences.

Tell us about your creative process, what drives your practice?

My creative process is all over the place as is what drives it honestly. I draw because I have to as an outlet, it helps my brain in grounding myself, other times I get so hyped from seeing other people nerding out about their interests it will send me on deep dives into whatever grabs my attention. Every project is also quite dependent on if I have financial, time or space capacity (if I can't afford a studio I will work from my bedroom). Other limitations can be my mental or physical health - I get RSI in my wrists and I am still recovering from two ankle injuries. Sometimes though these limitations are kind of helpful in that they give clear boundaries of what I can't do so my brain has to get inventive and think of ways to achieve whatever I want to achieve within those constraints. I do the same with setting deadlines and booking in shows; open endedness, and lack of parameters ends up doing the opposite of inspiring me and I become stuck in anxiety and perfectionism of trying to create the ULTIMATE work, which I know is impossible and something I can't nor should strive for but that's just how my brains wired. Essentially a lot of the time I have trick myself into creating art but once I find something I really want to make I become obsessive.

Your dreamy works seem to focus on relationships between people, places and the self. Where do you draw inspiration from for the subjects of your artworks? 

My work is auto-biographical and self-reflective of my own experiences. I remember at art school being told not to make work so personal but I can only speak to my experiences though. I think that's why I found myself drawn to the zine and comic world because people were sharing their stories unapologetically. Now when I look back on my practice it feels obvious to me that my art is a way for me to process milestones and obstacles. Some have taken longer to process so keep popping up as themes in the artwork. When I draw it's quite intuitive, sometimes I go in with a theme in mind then through my drawings it becomes obvious the true issue I've been struggling to articulate with words. I'm essentially documenting a life - heartaches, family conflict, exploring identity and sexuality and healing. I'm curious what my art might look like in the future, if I experience motherhood, aging and grief.

What draws you to working with Risographs? How do they inform and/or enhance your practice? 

I love the textured grain and misregistration that occurs in any type of printmaking, I think though I was drawn to risograph printing after going to one of my first zine fairs and seeing how other artists used it. Again, I also got into it because of accessibility and money reasons. It was cheaper and more available to me that other printmaking styles at the time so I took advantage of that. I still outsource the printing as I haven't been able to get formal training but hopefully soon, I will have time to. They remind me of poster art, which I'm influenced by, especially soviet propaganda art. I love pop up books and paper engineering too which I'm hoping in the future I will be able to explore more, but I've seen some really incredible experimentation with Riso printing, paper engineering and animation online (check out Kelli Anderson).

Your creative practice spans across various mediums - drawing, printmaking, murals, zine making. What does printmaking offer to your work that other mediums may not? 

It's funny when creating designs for other mediums I will try create imperfections that come naturally in printmaking like the grainy noise in different levels of inking for example or misregistration of layers that create white silhouettes behind characters as if they're cut outs popping up from the background. I think the layering I really love, when you can see traces of the other layers of ink underneath raised off or pressed into the paper my brain loves it, I don't think I can fully explain it but it feels like sensory thing, seeing all the different processes interact on paper.

Are there any female printmakers | artists that influence you?

Heaps! I kind of have different groups of inspiration. I have artists I learnt about in art school that helped inform my initial artistic identity like Kiki Smith, Cara Walker, Paula Rego and Grace Cossington Smith. Fafi, Swoon and Margaret Kilgallen are street artists with some printmaking crossover that I love to revisit for inspo. Recent artists and designers I've started following their practice is Yeo Kaa, Alabaster Pizzo, Kelli Anderson, Ghazal Foroutan and Anja Salonen.

Finally, what exciting projects are you working on at the moment?

No exciting art projects are underway at the moment, this year I am starting a course in conservation and ecosystem management and learning more about permaculture. My Mother's family are all avid gardeners and my Grandpa was also working in bush regeneration and education in New Zealand so I would love to try continue that as a family legacy. It would be cool to find a way to integrate my love of gardening and what I learn from the course into my art practice. I was also hoping to take some time off my casual work (I'm a child care worker) to focus solely on my art and follow through with some project ideas that have been on the backburner, one of them being to make a short animation about my Father's experience with my Nan's dementia. All of this is very reliant on if its financially safe for me to take time off work, especially with Sydney's rising rents and living costs. Other than that, my focus this year is mainly on upskilling, learning how to sew, grow, whittle and animate. I'm hoping for lots of opportunities to experiment and hopefully come out the other end with fresh ideas.