"I don't want to paint my personal screams - I prefer to stay detached." All-Hail the non-wrist slitter of Australian art! Jeffrey Smart is a legend and the retrospective currently touring Australia is a great opportunity for Australians to get off their bums and into a gallery to experience this expatriate's truly wonderful perspective on life, composition and the art of the detached. Jeffrey Smart grew up in Adelaide and early reviews of his work echoed what would become his life-long commitment to composition and the still image. "Smart's pictures are mostly painted from careful sketches made from nature. In his studio he paints and improves on nature by building a better composition." Early paintings show Smart's preoccupation with object placement and as the viewer moves from one painting to another in this chronologically presented retrospective, one can appreciate Smart's developing style. We can see the abandoning of textural detail and extra decoration as he begins to resolve everything towards clear, cohesive and emphatic compositional values.	CENTRAL STATION II 1974-75
PORTRAIT OF DAVID MALOUF 1980	Indeed, Smart's conception of what he does is thus - "My only concern is putting the right shapes in the right colours in the right places. It is always geometry." (Smart cites his favourite painting as Piero della Francesca's The Flagellation, which is viewed in art circles as perhaps the best example of perfect composition ever painted). Despite having moved to Italy in the 1960's and having lived there ever since, I think there remains an especially Australian sense of humour to Jeffrey Smart's work. I especially enjoyed the playfulness of Portrait of David Malouf There is a sense that whilst there are strict compositional rules going into the painting, Smart is well aware that he is creating a mysteriously ambiguous scene rather than the second coming of Christ.
Smart's subject matter is very urban and in many ways, mundane and often bleak, but he treats it in such a way as to make it almost special, using colour and light to make the urban landscapes/objects themselves scapes to be admired for their honesty. Figures in Smart's paintings are often inanimate props in the composition - we don't need to read a greater personal meaning into their presence, apart from the fact that they give the picture a human dimension that strikes a chord. Yet, the figures do reveal the power of emblems. It is as though Smart was the painter to precede Graphic Art. He improved upon nature - made it look better, more recognisable. And like Graphic Art, Smart elevates the symbol, recognising its importance as a universal locator. Which serves to strike the balance between mystery and reality in Smart's paintings.	REFLECTED ARROWS 1974

I urge everyone to go and see this exhibition. What Jeffrey Smart creates is special and I'm proud that this exhibition has been touring its way around the country. I'm just sorry that it isn't going to every state, let alone regional areas. Experiencing Smart's unique perspective is a thrill. Enjoy.

- Neriman Kemal