Michael Smith : MEMORY CURRENT
Nicholas Metivier Gallery
Essay by Robert Enright (PDF) >
A landscape for Michael Smith is a world and a whirled. He recognizes that all his references refer to landscape and he is obsessed with those possibilities. There is no single way for his landscapes to be viewed or rendered and, as a result, the process of their realization is neither stable nor predictable. In Smith’s hands, a landscape is a repository for memory (the past) and a site for making (the present). At their core, they hold emotion, psychology and aesthetics in an inexplicable balance.
– Robert Enright
“In Smith’s latest body of work, he applies his signature technique to explore the notion of landscape layered with history. The places represented in Smith’s paintings are in a state of constant flux, transitioning between natural, industrialized and at times, war-torn landscapes. Memory Current, the title of the exhibition, refers to the simultaneous activation of events that have taken place in the landscape, over a period of time. For Smith, the pastoral or untouched landscape is no longer relevant – large vessels float on the sea’s horizon while buildings appear destabilized by human destruction or elemental forces. It is these loose points of reference that are at once historical and contemporary, representational and abstract, that create a compelling mix of excitement and anxiety in Smith’s paintings.”
– Nicholas Metivier Gallery