Diana Baker Smith is an artist based on Gadigal land in Sydney. Her practice is grounded in feminist methodologies and collaborative processes, activating embodied and affective responses to historical materials. Working at the intersection of performance and moving image, she engages with sites, archives, and institutional histories to reimagine what is remembered, forgotten or deliberately obscured. She is currently developing a new body of work that draws on her familial archive to trace the entangled colonial histories of Ireland and Australia, using water as both subject and method.
Recent solo exhibitions and commissions include, This Place Where They Dwell (Penrith Regional Gallery, 2024), Falling Towards Another (Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2024), A Score for Reconstruction (Newcastle Art Gallery, 2024), She Speaks in Sculpture (UTS Art Gallery, 2022), The Lost Hour (Contemporary Art Tasmania, 2022) and Tasks yet to be composed for the occasion (Ideas Platform, Artspace, 2021). Her solo and collaborative works have been presented nationally at institutions including the Art Gallery of NSW, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, La Trobe Art Institute, and the Biennale of Sydney. Internationally her work has been presented at institutions including Te Uru, Auckland, The Physics Room, Christchurch, Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, and Hayward Gallery, London.
In 2025 Diana was awarded the Major Acquisitive Gosford Art Prize, and in 2024 was the recipient of the Judy Wheeler Commission at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. She has undertaken international residencies in Ireland, Korea and China, and was awarded the Creative Australia London Studio Residency at Acme Studios in 2018. Diana is also a founding member of the art collective Barbara Cleveland. Their collaborative works are held in institutional collections including Artbank, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and Monash University Museum of Art.
Diana is currently undertaking the inaugural Vaucluse House Creative and Cultural Residency through Museums of History NSW. She is a Senior Lecturer in Fine Arts at the School of Art & Design, UNSW Sydney.
Contact
mail@dianabakersmith.com
Photo © James Horan for Museums of History NSW.