Jeremy Smith
Email: jeremy.smith@unsw.edu.au
Supervisors: Michael Garbutt, Emma Robertson, Gary Carsley
Jeremy William Smith is a Sydney-based artist, curator, and researcher whose practice reimagines how queer histories, bodies, and spaces are drawn and remembered. His PhD thesis title is: “Drawing Intersubjective Counter-Cartographies of Queer Sydney in the Post-PrEP Era”. His doctoral research develops the original framework of intersubjective counter-cartography, a drawing-based methodology that combines queer theory, community collaboration, and historical research to create reparative maps of Sydney’s queer past and present.
Through four major hand-drawn counter-maps, “Queer Sydney: A History” (2022), “Gaybourhood Bubbles of Sydney” (2023–25), “Pharmacological Body: AIDS/PrEP Map” (2023), and “Psyche Map of Survival” (2025), Smith explores how time, place, body, and mind shape the contemporary gay male experience. The series collectively forms an atlas of post-PrEP queer Sydney: charting liberation and loss, activism and intimacy, trauma and transformation.
This practice-led research positions drawing as a form of embodied thinking and collective storytelling. Each map is co-authored through dialogue with historians, community members, and institutions, transforming cartography from a colonial instrument of control into a queer methodology of empathy and resistance.
Smith’s works have been collected by major public institutions including the State Library of New South Wales, University of Sydney Fisher Library, Australian National Maritime Museum, and QTOPIA Sydney, affirming the cultural and scholarly significance of his contribution to queer historiography and visual culture.
- Research area
- Research outputs
- Works and exhibitions
- Awards and honours
- Professional appointments
The aim of my research is to combine drawing with practices of counter-mapping and counter-narrative to create epistemological cultural artefacts of the changing gay male body in Sydney, post the introduction of the anti-retroviral drug Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP). These hand-drawn counter-maps and epistemologies synthesise graphic, observational and pictographic ink pen drawings, with iconography and text to create visual counter-narratives with which to visualise the often-erased history and changing topography of gay male corporeality.
The project argues that drawing is an epistemological system, with the practice of drawing as the encryption and embodiment of information that proceeds simultaneously from the act itself and the artefact this creates. A further aim of the project is to contribute to and critique attempts at ‘queering the archive’ by creating a series of cultural artefacts to be collected by institutions in Sydney. The studio practice becomes an act of creating a queer archive of history with a focus on the gay male body in Sydney.
- 2024: Curating an exhibition about LGBTQI+ history at Qtopia Sydney.
- 2023: Catalogue essay for TEXTA exhibition at Drawspace.
- 2015: ‘The Uncharted Land’ Masters of Fine Arts research paper, presented and published online
- at Drawing International Brisbane: ‘Ego, Artefact, Arena’ Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane October.
- 2015: Smith, Jeremy, ‘ The Uncharted Land’ UNSW Art and Design, Postgraduate Conference and UNSWorks.
- 2012: UNSWorks; Fine Arts Honours paper Smith, Jeremy, ‘Autocartography’ UNSW Art and Design.
- 2012: ‘Tomorrow, Today’; Smith, Jeremy, ‘Cartographic Explorations of the Self’ UNSW Art and Design.
Publications and writing
- 2025 – “The Queerness of Drawing,” Catalogue Essay, Queer Drawing, Draw Space
- 2024 – “Eternity in an Hour,” Catalogue Essay, Detail, Draw Space
- 2024 – “Queer Sydney: A History,” Paper, Australian Queer History Conference, AQuA, Melbourne
- 2023 – “Love Letter to the Humble TEXTA Pen,” Catalogue Essay, TEXTA, Draw Space
- 2015 – “The Uncharted Land,” Paper, Drawing International Brisbane, Griffith University
- 2015 – The Uncharted Land, MFA Thesis, UNSWorks, UNSW
- 2012 – Autocartography, Honours Thesis, UNSWorks, UNSW
Selected Major Works and Collections
- Gaybourhood Bubbles of Sydney (2023–2025) – Double-hemisphere queer map of Sydney’s east–west divide, collected by the State Library of NSW.
- Pharmacological Body: AIDS/PrEP Map (2023) – Counter-map exploring queer biopolitics and affect, collected by the State Library of NSW.
- Queer Sydney: A History (2022) – Commissioned by the University of Sydney Fisher Library, permanently installed in the public collection.
- Gay Man Map (2021) – Psychological mapping of queer interiority, collected by the State Library of NSW.
- Gay Map of Sydney (2019) – Cartography of Sydney’s gay community, collected by the State Library of NSW.
- Map of the Zeitgeist (Titanic) (2022) – Environmental allegory, collected by the Australian National Maritime Museum.
- Ms Bloomsby (2014) – Stream-of-consciousness map, winner of the Tim Olsen Drawing Prize.
- Psyche Map of Survival (2025) – Selected as the cover artwork for Anti-Discrimination NSW’s 2025 Annual Report.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
- 2024 – We’re Here, We’re Queer, QTOPIA Sydney
- 2024 – Drawing Queer Counter-Cartography, UNSW Art & Design
- 2023 – Atlas of Narrative Cartography, .M Contemporary, Darlinghurst
- 2022 – Mapping Hidden Worlds, .M Contemporary, Darlinghurst
- 2021 – Gay Man Mapping, Room 205, Darlinghurst
- 2015 – Uncharted Land, UNSW Art & Design (Master’s Final Exhibition)
Selected Group Exhibitions
- 2025 – ARCUS Pride Art 2025, Clifford Chance; Queer Drawing, Draw Space, Newtown
- 2024 – In Parallel; Detail; Dusk + Dust: The Denouement; Tim Olsen Drawing Prize, UNSW AD Space; Strange Landscapes, University of Idaho, USA
- 2023 – Passengers, Maritime Museum; TEXTA, Draw Space; Pride Revolution, State Library of NSW; Unashamed, Artspace Chatswood; WorldPride Pride Amplified, .M Contemporary
- 2022 – Tim Olsen Drawing Prize, UNSW AD Space; Mighty Real, .M Contemporary
- 2021 – Life Drawing at Sydney Sauna (Mardi Gras collaboration)
- 2019–2016 – Just Draw, Newcastle Art Gallery & Bathurst Regional Art Gallery; Fallacy, 107 Projects; Interior, Scratch Art Space; To Draw, To See, Sydney Sexual Health Centre; Rolo-Dex, Tokyo
- 2013–2012 – Macquarie Group Emerging Artist Prize, COFA Annual Exhibition, Tim Olsen Drawing Prize, Tomorrow, Today, Where the Wild Things Are, Lloyd Rees Memorial Youth Art Award
Curatorial Practice
- 2025 – Queer Drawing, Draw Space, Newtown (Curator)
- 2024 – Detail, Draw Space; Dusk + Dust: The Denouement, Draw Space
- 2023–24 – We’re Here, We’re Queer, QTOPIA Sydney (Lead Curator, Education & Public Program)
Smith is also Curatorial Coordinator and Artistic Ambassador at QTOPIA Sydney, leading exhibitions that bridge art, activism, and education. His curatorial work focuses on re-centering queer histories in public institutions and fostering intergenerational dialogue through drawing and visual storytelling.
- Tim Olsen Drawing Prize – Winner (2013); Finalist (2011, 2012, 2014, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025)
- UNSW Art & Design Top-Up Scholarship – Highest-ranked PhD candidate (2022)
- Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) (2013–2015)
- Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship (2021–Present)
- Cayte Latta Memorial Award for Visual Arts, ACON Honours (Finalist, 2023)
- Lloyd Rees Memorial Youth Art Award – Commended (2019)
- Tropical Fruits Art Prize – 2nd Prize Winner (2019)
- Caran D’Ache Prize – Winner (2012)
- Gallery Barry Keldoulis Award for Meritorious Practice – Winner (2012)
- Oxford Art Supplies Drawing Prize – Highly Commended (2011)
- Dean’s List for Academic Excellence, UNSW (2012, 2015)
- Curator & Artistic Ambassador, QTOPIA Sydney (2023–Present)
- Senior Gallery Attendant & Tour Guide, White Rabbit Gallery (2015–Present)
- Events Assistant, Dangrove & Phoenix Spaces (2019–Present)
- Former Gallery Attendant, Museum of Contemporary Art (2015–2022)