Emily Mae Smith creates technically astounding paintings that combine dense art historical reference to Pop art, symbolism, and surrealism, a carefully articulated feminist argument, and a wry sense of humour. Her most celebrated and best known character is a broomstick figure that has recurred throughout her work. Smith appropriated the figures from the Disney film Fantasia, in which, during one scene, the broomsticks come to life. In her work, the figure continuously evolves and reappears in different forms and guises; at some points appearing a domestic tool associated with women’s labour, at others a stand-in for the painters brush, and also often also as a proto-phallic symbol.

In the present work, the broomstick figure is closely cropped and dressed up in a pantomime costume included a Yayoi Kusama-esque wig, and some raster-dot glasses that appear to make reference to Roy Lichtenstein’s mode of depiction. The lenses are obscured by hyper-realistic wave forms which recall the Great Wave of Hokusai. It is a surreal and cinematic tableau that typifies of Smith’s flair for composition.

The artist has spoken of the significance of this series: “Literally, a broom is a tool, but it's also this visual tool that communicates stories and ideas in my paintings. This agent, like some kind of secret agent, going through the history of art, disturbing constructs, making some trouble, or behaving badly, but is never doing the work of the broom. The broom is never sweeping!” (Emily Mae Smith quoted in: “Emily Mae Smith: A Clean Sweep”, JUXTAPOZ Magazine, 6 May 2019)