Lucky Smith is a passionate expressionist painter from rural South Australia, now living and working in Adelaide. Lucky specialises in large-scale portraiture of pop culture personalities and surrealist scenes using oil & acrylics. An avid painter from the age of six, his organically developed style has blossomed into grand and colourful artworks that fill a wall, brighten a room, and invite a crowd into vibrant conversation.
Lucky is an imaginative storyteller, learning foundations of writing from John Collee's AFTRS Screenwriting course in 2016, and a Bachelor of Media Arts from the University of South Australia, before travelling to New York in 2022 to study story structure under screen and writing lecturer Robert McKee. Lucky uses these storytelling principles to construct scenes in his artwork which empathetically explore complex interpersonal exchanges and idiosyncratic social situations, with recurring motifs such as anthropomorphised animals and retro pop culture.
Lucky has worked in graphic design and the film industry for over a decade, crewing on such significant projects as The Tourist (2020, STAN), La Brea (2020, NBC), & Territory (2024, NETFLIX).
Lucky’s artwork is displayed in numerous public and private collections domestically and internationally. His solo exhibition 'Your Spectrum is Showing' was held at Linhay Gallery in Auburn SA in 2022. Lucky has a studio at The Mill and will be exhibiting as part of The Mill’s visual art program in 2025.
