In The Flesh Natasha Matila-Smith

Please join us for the opening of In The Flesh, with new work in the second space of Blue Oyster, by Tāmaki Makaurau-based artist and writer, Natasha Matila-Smith.

There is an obsessive quality within the works of Matila-Smith, obsessive of a character that is unknown to everyone, including, as it seems from the viewer’s perspective, the artist. The identity of the character is not important either, instead, the feeling of longing to belong.
 
In The Flesh examines societies understanding and expectations of intimacy, lust and romance, and societies assertion of these expectations onto the self.
 
Natasha Matila-Smith (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Hine) is an artist and writer based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She graduated from the University of Auckland with a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2014. Natasha's practice interrogates ideas of singularity and rejects fixed identities. She often approaches heavy themes with satire, with her recent works dealing with social anxieties through combining contemporary culture with the digital landscape. Recent exhibitions include The Cold Islanders, Waikato Museum, 2017 andyou’re my number 1, Firstdraft, Sydney, 2017. As a writer, she has contributed to numerous online and print publications which include Runway Australian Experimental Art, Matters Aotearoa and Art New Zealand.