Peter Smyth

His process begins with forms drawn from leaves, petals, stems and fungal networks. He turns them into three-dimensional models and tests combinations of light, color and reflections before transferring the composition to canvas. The result retains a precision associated with computer-generated imagery while introducing the thickness, texture and time of manual work. Smyth calls some of these compositions Arborisms, connecting their construction to the tending and organization of plant growth.

This relationship between visible and invisible processes shaped Mutualisms, his first solo exhibition, presented at Atelier Now, Dublin, in 2022. The exhibition explored cooperation between organisms as a way of considering the exchange between digital modeling and painting. Computer-generated images served as a preparatory stage behind the painted works, just as many ecological processes operate beyond our sight.

His more recent research also considers unequal exchanges. Drawing on the ecological relationship between source and sink, he treats the digital environment as a space that rapidly generates variations, while painting concentrates attention and labor. Plant forms associated with extraction and biopiracy introduce questions about what is transformed, accumulated or lost as a structure moves between systems.

His involvement with Scene + Heard, Smock Alley Theatre’s festival of new work, includes the cover artwork for its 2023 program and the 2024 exhibition Triumvirate, alongside Jordan Cassidy and Ró Dennis. In 2023 he received an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland to develop his practice. These projects bring his work into dialogue with other disciplines and Ireland’s creative community.

His exhibition career has expanded from Ireland to Denmark and the United States. He participated in MIX 2025 at KIRK Gallery, Aalborg, and Six By Six at ABV Gallery, Atlanta, in 2026. The latter featured small paintings from Throughflow, a series that approaches botanical structures as routes for the circulation and transformation of energy. Recent works such as Eulophia Zollingeri continue this investigation and are presented by Marquesa Gallery.