Nikky Morgan-Smith: Index Act

In INDEX ACT, Morgan-Smith will present a series of layered drawings that function as inventories of energy – the index and the act – both traces being held simultaneously together and apart by the tension and gravity of existing in parallel. The index and its original are impossible to disentangle.

Morgan-Smith’s works explore actualising energies as images, utilising the body as an archival site to channel and express energy. The works are made of two parts; the first is made by creating still images of studio-based performance – the performance is the act of recalling sensations, an idea or feeling. The second part are drawings made by responding to the still images, utilising gesture, direct and spontaneous. The two parts are then assembled to create an integrated whole from which a new spirit emerges, creating a third realm, a space in between.


"INDEX ACT regards drawing as an embodied practice, bound to lived experience, re-connecting the mind and body. In these works I consider the body's capacity to translate and hold a message which is then translated back by the body through energy into a drawing, a continuing loop of energies." – Nikky Morgan-Smith

Nikky Morgan-Smith is an artist based on the mid-north coast of NSW on Gumbaynggirr country. Morgan-Smith’s practice anchors itself in explorative and expanded drawing. Her work investigates the mind-body problem through somaesthetic’s. Employing gestural drawing and bodily imagery, Morgan-Smith constructs layered collage and drawing based assemblage works.

Morgan-Smith received BFA from RMIT in 2004 and an MFA from The National Art School in 2024. Morgan-Smith has exhibited consistently for the last twenty years throughout Australia and in Europe, her work is represented in public and private collections in Australia and Europe. Morgan-Smith has been a finalist in numerous art prizes, Most recently the Muswellbrook art prize 2024, 2025, the Ravenswood woman’s Art Prize 2023, JADA Drawing Prize 2018, 2024, RMIT Women Researchers Network Prize 2023, Olive Cotton Award 2023, Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize 2023 and The National Still Life Award2 2021. Morgan-Smith has been awarded various artist in residence programs, notably the Suzanne Bastian Foundation in Vanuatu.

More information on the DRAW Space website.