How Archibald Prize finalist Dee Smart developed a ‘superpower’ during her battle with cancer
Being deathly ill gave Archibald Prize finalist and former actor Dee Smart a sudden sixth-sense in life and art.
Wentworth Courier
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Dee Smart’s self-portrait has been short-listed in the 2020 Archibald Prize and is hanging in the Gallery of New South Wales. It’s not a complete surprise to see her make the cut. The former dancer and actor, now artist, was short-listed in the prestigious award in 2017 and 2020 and her wider works are celebrated the world over.
As an artist – Dee is a spectacular success. But this latest creation from the Bellevue Hill resident is nothing like her earlier, much sought-after pieces.
It’s smaller for one thing, hanging at just 49 by 59 centimetres, accordingly taking up far less space than the large-scale dramatic works that make up the majority of this famed annual exhibition.
Its diminutive size plays its own role, however, serving to highlight the delicacy of the brushstrokes, which are soft yet so powerful that when you stand close it takes all you’ve got not to reach out and stroke it.
The work – titled I’m Here – was painted while Dee was fighting for her life after being diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of cancer.
Today, just hours after it was carefully hung by glove-wearing staff, the mother-of-three is struggling to put into words just how much it means to have this particular painting short-listed.
It’s clear she wants to talk about art and process and the magic of creativity and we both know she will, but there’s no getting around the inspiration behind this small, but startling painting and how it came to be.
“It is a very simple portrait,” she says. “There’s no bells and whistles. And that is a definite change for me.
“My portraits to date have been filled with drama. I love to tell a story … I love humour and so I started with this extravaganza.”
But then Dee received her cancer diagnosis, had a tumour removed from her bladder and afterwards met with a deeply empathetic, but straight-talking doctor who told her simply her situation was “really not good”.
Dee, 54, took it all in.
She listened to her doctor and accepted his plan of treatment. She committed to it all. But she did not for one moment consider not painting – instead she decided to create something altogether different.
“It was in this moment in my life when I thought if I can’t express something truthful – something honest and raw … well, what’s the bloody use?”
So Dee began a portrait that required her to look in the mirror daily and come to terms with the changes her body was going through while it gave its all in what was the fight of a lifetime.
Each day she would take in every detail, no matter how confronting or painful.
“I had to look at myself in the mirror at my most awful, my most vulnerable,” she says, voice choked with tears.
“I stuck a mirror in front of myself and just looked … And again I thought, ‘If I cannot just f***ing paint what’s going on in my f***ing life right now then what’s the f***ing point?
“I told myself, ‘You might as well drop off the perch. Right f***ing now’.”
Months have now passed and Dee looks incredible. Her eyes are bright, her smile inviting. She’s once again the lithe dancer cum actor cum artist Australia has known and loved for decades. Remember her in Home and Away? Water Rats? Looking incredible at the Logies?
But, despite her current robust, runway model looks, the pain, not to mention the physical ravages of a significant cancer experience have not lessened – not for her anyway.
“I looked so horrible,” she concedes. “I had f***ing horrible sores on my lips, on my nose, I don’t know why, but I did … and it was horrible. All of it.
“But I took all of that and I painted, hoping I would be able to get something that communicated that bravery, that feeling and then I took the painting in and hoped it was enough. That it wouldn’t be overlooked and it wasn’t and now there it is – hanging in the gallery.”
Despite her phenomenal skill and popularity, and the fact she has been short-listed twice before, Dee was not confident this small, unassuming painting would make the grade.
“I really took a chance with this little portrait, this very simple little portrait,” she says with characteristic honesty.
“It could well have been passed over completely – especially when you consider they had more entries this year than ever before, so when it was chosen it was such a thrill. The truth is when I painted this painting there was a strong possibility I wasn’t going to be around for very much longer. That changes everything.”
Being short-listed has been the highlight of what has clearly been a traumatic and difficult year for Dee, her family and friends. A cancer diagnosis is nobody’s idea of a good time, but Dee is adamant she wouldn’t change a thing.
Seemingly, her cancer battle, which is now officially over (she is currently cancer-free), has only strengthened her thoughts and feelings around all of life’s big issues – love, family, what matters and of course, what really doesn’t.
“I wouldn’t give it up for a moment,” she says. “I don’t regret any of it. Everything that has happened to me in the past year … it has been extraordinary and positive in so many ways.
“I’m not saying it wasn’t brutal. It was. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but I do wish people could, for a moment anyway, know what it’s like when your life is in the balance and you realise you may not be here for long. That knowledge … it changes you.”
For Dee, being deathly ill meant a sudden sixth-sense for who she needed to hold tight and who she needed to jettison from her life.
It also clarified for her the qualities she wanted and needed to see in the people around her.
“There’s nothing terribly dramatic about it,” she explains.
“It’s life, but it’s like your senses are heightened and so is your gratitude for nature and people, good people especially.
“The one big positive for me was that during those seven months of complete horribleness I developed a kind of superpower, a sort of radar for bullshit. It meant that if anyone was talking bullshit to me, or lying to me, or they started fading out of my life, I knew it.”
One friend, for example, seemed to be making excuses not to see Dee nor to catch up, even on the phone.
It hurt her feelings, but only briefly. She was convinced she had no time to waste – and so she didn’t, instead telling not just this friend, but everyone around her, to please be honest.
This newly acquired attitude is one Dee plans to keep for the rest of her life. A life she hopes will be long and filled with deep belly laughter and love – and of course, art and all things creative.
“There are so many wonderful people out there,” she stresses.
“I plan to spend every waking moment with them and anyone who doesn’t make you feel great about yourself … f**k them off. Do it today. It could be you’ve not got as much time as you think.
“I honestly wish everyone could have a little taste of what it’s like … without all the horror that’s attached of course.”
When it comes to the topic of cancer and serious illness in general for that matter, Dee does want to spread a message – to those who have battled or are battling cancer or any significant disease themselves, and also those who are dear to them. And the message is simple – be patient. And also kind. And that’s pretty much it.
“I have been dreadfully ill and there have been some dark, dark times,” she says, fighting tears.
“There were times when I wondered how much more I could take. But I kept going. And today I get to see people’s reactions to my portrait and it’s life affirming.
“It’s healing for me and it allows me to connect with other people … and that connection is everything.
“We’re all just humans in our little human bodies and they’re fragile sometimes so we need to be gentle and kind with one another. Always.”
Finalists in the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2020 are on show at the Art Gallery of NSW until 10 January 2021. For details and tickets, visit artgallery.nsw.gov.au
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