Through an intense scrutiny of the world around him, Ken Smith records with stunning precision his own formal arrangement of 'found' objects set against the endless expanse of the sea and sky. These cool light suffused paintings allow for contemplation through their serenity and stillness. Ken Smith's still life groups have a power and assertiveness that has been achieved through a masterly control of the medium and remarkable finesse of subtle colour transitions.

Ken's paintings continue his responses to the region where he lives – the Mornington Peninsula – and articulate his ongoing attempts to understand some of its visual characteristics through the experience of painting en plein air. In an age of increasing globalisation perhaps it is important to spend time with the local, for we all come from and live somewhere. Of increasing interest over these last years is the awareness of the passing of time and specifically the constant variability of phenomena in landscape - where everything changes over time's duration. Manipulating line, shape, texture, composition, tone and colour, time is contained within Smith's practice. It is the last and most inexplicable of these elements – colour – that now seems to be most associated with the transience of time.

Ken Smith was recently awarded the 2012 Rick Amor Drawing Prize for his work In The Light Of History I. Ken has also been a finalist in the Heysen Prize, and a multiple finalist in both the Jacaranda Acquisitive Art Award and the Tattersall's Club Art Prize. His work is also represented in the collections of Artbank, Leeuwin Estate, Michell Endowment, Arbitration Commission and many other corporate and private collections.