Ross T. Smith
Ross T. Smith (b. 1961) is a Ngāpuhi/Māori photographer who has lived between both Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. Smith studied fine art photography in Melbourne at the Australian College of Photography Art and Communication between 1987 and 1990. In particular, Smith is known for his photographic series such as *Hokianga* (1997–98), held in the permanent collection of the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, and *Hemi Tuwharerangi Paraha* (1999) in which these two bodies of work position the image of young Māori men and women within the remote New Zealand landscape. In these complex series of portraits, Smith depicts the figure in varying states of strength and fragility, eschewing evocative documentary portraiture to consider the restrictions of identity and representation in a marginalised group. Smith is known within Australia for his large-scale photographic composition *L’amour et la mort sont la même chose* (1990–92), held within the National Gallery of Victoria collection and exhibited within *QUEER: Stories from the NGV Collection* (2022), *TRANSMISSIONS: Archiving HIV/AIDS, Melbourne 1979–2014*, George Paton Gallery, University of Melbourne (2014), and *Don't Leave Me This Way: Art in the Age of AIDS* (1994), National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Smith's work is held in various Australian, New Zealand, and international collections.