By SUE SMITH

     JEFFREY Smart sees absurdity in our bright modern world, but he is not a mocker. A painting like "The Terraces, Madrid Airport II", in his current Brisbane exhibition, is a typical gem, full of wry humour and strange portent: as impressive planes glide past, a section of concrete ceiling has just collapsed - narrowly missing two horrified onlookers.
     The picture is about the insolent pride of modern planners, to be sure, but it is also about spirituality, since the onlookers have been spared by some capricious force or deity.
     "I think there’s a spiritual force," explains Smart, talking on the phone from Sydney. Jet-lagged but bouyant, he is in Australia, visiting Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide to promote his newly published memoirs, "Not Quite Straight" and finally coming up to Brisbane for his only Australian exhibition.
     "I’m a theist, not an agnostic," he continues. "I’m convinced there’s something going on. I don’t know what it is, but I feel protected: the world can be malevolent, but it can also be very benevolent.
     "I think there’s something that moves one when you paint, I think there’s a moving spirit."
     Whatever spirit it is that guides him, Smart has repeatedly said that art should be made out of the ordinary world, and that is why he paints airports, carparks and expressways. But, of course, only a special artist has the ability to show the extraordinary and unexpected in this ordinariness.
     Smart’s gift is to recognise, and eternalise, what we mostly ignore. Through his art he makes a monument out of an arcing expressway; captures the strange feeling of embarking on a journey into the unknown that occurs on an escalator ride into the gloomy depths of subway stations.
     Is this what makes him so popular? Partly, perhaps. His shows tend to be high-priced sell-outs, and he has been astonished by the eager reception of his book of reminiscences.