Vivian Ross-Smith (she/her) makes paintings, performances and textiles to create space for experiential-led happenings.
In these works, Vivian focuses on practices of care, including generosity, reciprocity and expectations of rest. Rooted in her background as a Social Care Worker, she utilises gesture and tacit communication to emphasise the language of tactility. Exploring sensuality, coding and the queering of materiality, she encourages a bodily response to her artwork through touch and active participation.
Spending the majority of her life as part of communities that are perceived as ‘remote’ and ‘fragile’, the making practices and material culture of place play a central role in the site-specificity of her work. As well as in the gallery and the studio, you can find Vivian's practice existing in the sea, within cracks of the cliff and in the pockets of paintings.
Vivian has a BA(Hons) from Gray’s School of Art (2013), a Masters with Distinction from Glasgow School of Art (2020). She was the inaugural Freelands Studio Fellow at Swansea College of Art in 2023. Vivian currently lives and works in South Wales and is part of performance collective SGOR SCORE.
