Professor Richard Sawdon Smith exhibits work in celebration of LGBT+ History Month 2022

The work presented will contribute a triptych to ‘Out in the Picture’, a Queer exhibition of self-portraiture featuring local Norwich artists. The exhibition is a celebration of LGBT+ History Month, 2022.

The work is a selection from three major projects from Professor Sawdon Smith’s twenty-year career as an award-winning photographer; The Damaged Narcissist, The Anatomical Man, his tattooed alter ego and the recent, The Unknowing…X, a project about playing in the dressing up box, remembering previous lives lived and creating new personas for the future.

Although from separate projects, they are presented together as a triptych that explores the connections and synergies of his singularly focused practice on Queer representation.

Richard creates a way of detaching himself from the self in the images, enabling dialogue about the work in the third person and their relationship to communities and institutions.

Richard combines this discussion with an exploration of issues of ageing, gender, identity, sexuality, subjectivity, masculinity, and everything in between.

Richard Sawdon Smith is Professor of Fine Art and Programme Director for Fine Art and Photography at NUA.

Exhibition details

Out in the Picture | 1 – 12 February 2022
Anteros Arts Foundation, 11-15 Fye Bridge Street, Norwich NR3 1LJ
Open Tuesday to Saturday, 9.30am-4pm.
An exhibition to coincide with LGBT+ History Month.

‘Out In The Picture’, curated by Rachel Collier-Wilson, is an exhibition of self-portraits by emerging and internationally established Norfolk based artists who identify as LGBT+.

Rachel explains; “I wanted to provide a space for artists who identify as LGBT+ to acknowledge their place in our rich and diverse history and to celebrate LGBT+ History Month. 

“LGBT+ History Month is an annual event to celebrate and educate regarding diversity and inclusion. As LGBT+ people, we are often ‘othered’ or left out of the picture. The Out In the Picture exhibition provides a space where we can put ourselves in the frame. Artists play a vital part in documenting history and, through self-portraits, artists can site themselves wherever they want to be seen.”

Discover more of Richard’s work