Jordan Smith

Year of birth: 1992
Where do you live: Currently Singapore but relocating to somewhere in the UK in April 2025
Your education: BA(Hons) Fine Art, Manchester Metropolitan University 2012 – 2015
Your discipline: whatever I can get my hands on.
Instagram

Your art journey seems to have taken many twists and turns. Can you share how your travels and time in the army influenced your artistic practice?

For sure. My journey hasn’t been straightforward, but I don’t regret a moment of it. I really wanted to travel and experience the world when I was younger; I never wanted to stay in one place. Traveling to Nepal and seeing the Himalayas for the first time was incredible. One morning, the clouds cleared, and I saw Manaslu in the distance. I think that was the first time I truly experienced real natural beauty. Then, somehow, I ended up in the military and spent most of my time overseas. Didn’t see that one coming.
Now, my experiences of seeing the Himalayas and traveling the world have become a focal point in my work. When I was studying in Manchester, my art was quite minimal, and I tried to be clever. Now, I’m creating work that I enjoy, it feels more natural and not forced.

You mentioned recycling old materials in your work. How do you decide what materials to use, and why do you focus on repurposing everyday objects like birthday cards and exhibition flyers?

I just collect things I see on my travels. Then I come home and look at everything I have. From there, I dismantle what I’ve got, and the images just start to layer up. I never have a fixed idea of what I’m going to do; the images just make themselves, really. One day, I realised I had a few years’ worth of saved birthday cards, which usually just said, ‘Dear Jord, happy birthday, love from.…’ So I started cutting them up too. Obviously, it’s better for the environment, but I just think, why not use objects productively that would probably just be thrown away?

Mountains seem to be a recurring theme in your work. What is it about mountains that draws you in, and how do you make this subject fun and interesting?

I used to go hill walking with my dad when I was younger, and I just kept doing it. The first time I went to Scotland, I was taken aback by the landscape; I’m not really sure how it even exists. In the last few years, I’ve become pretty obsessed with the outdoors and climbing steep ridge lines. For me, there’s nothing more captivating than driving into Eryri National Park and seeing Tryfan for the first time—it always looks like a dinosaur to me.
It’s cool and contemporary to make art about big issues, but I just like mountains and how each one is different, beautiful, and sometimes utterly terrifying.

How has your approach to collage evolved over the last couple of years, and how do you see it growing in the future?

I never used to collage; it just sort of happened. I used to draw and paint, mostly abstract work. About two years ago, I started making Christmas cards for people using an old magazine. I enjoyed the process of cutting up scraps to create something, a bit like the old TV program Scrapheap Challenge, and I just kept doing it since then.
I’ve been working on a small scale, but I’d like to experiment with working on a larger scale and see how that goes. In the meantime, I’m just enjoying making work again. I do think there’s definitely a correlation between making abstract paintings and creating these collages; I just don’t know how to describe it.

Your background in art school and collaborations with other artists like Jeremy Deller must have been influential. Can you tell us more about that experience and how it shaped your artistic identity?

Yes. I was just being myself, making small drawings, and one of them got selected to exhibit with a Turner Prize winner. The exhibition was focused on encouraging young people to vote, and it was pretty successful. In hindsight, I should have built on that momentum, but life happened, and here I am. I never lost touch with the art world though; I was still visiting exhibitions, but I lost touch with making my own work. I felt a bit lost—maybe on standby.

What role do you think humour plays in your artwork, especially when dealing with such profound subjects like mountains?

I just enjoy artwork that has humour. It’s great when you go to an exhibition and see something that makes you smile. I’ve been to a few shows recently where the work was, for example, a box in the middle of the floor with some sand on it. That doesn’t really excite me. I try to be myself when making images, and the humour comes out naturally for me.

You’re currently based in Singapore. How has the environment there influenced your latest works, and what can we expect from you next?

They have fancy materials. I was in Taipei a few weeks back, and the receipts there are brilliant. I’m now incorporating receipts into my work; they’re a great material. In Singapore, everything is so polished. I started sketching the cityscape when I first arrived, but I realised I preferred the backstreets and the outskirts, where people were playing chess and having cigarettes. That was much more interesting to me. There’s something honest about being rough around the edges and I think that translates into my own work.