CAPTURED: Paul Anthony Smith and Carrie Secrist

Paul Anthony Smith and Carrie Secrist photographed May 3,2014 at the Carrie Secrist Gallery, Chicago, IL. BlackArtistNews photo.  All rights reserved.

BlackArtistNews | May 6, 2014

On May 3, 2014, BlackArtistNews attended the reception for Paul Anthony Smith: Mangos and Crabs at the Carrie Secrist Gallery and snapped this photo of the Brooklyn-based emerging artist with the gallery owner. The works presented are a study in contrasts: velvety smooth monochromatic paintings are sided with distressed inkjet prints; their surfaces methodically scraped to obscure the individual figures that lie within the photographic plane. All of the pieces were conceived in 2013 during Smith’s visit to his hometown of Port Antonio, Jamaica and show his ability to deftly abstract the human form.

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CHICAGO: Paul Anthony Smith

Paul Anthony Smith, Untitled 02. 2014, unique picotage on inkjet print, 30 1/2 x 20 1/2 inches. Image via secristgallery.com.

Paul Anthony Smith: Mangos and Crab

May 3 – June 14, 2014

Opening reception: Saturday, May 3, 2014, 4 – 7pm

CARRIE SECRIST GALLERY

835 West Washington Boulevard

Chicago, IL

From secristgallery.com:

Paul Anthony Smith: Mangos and Crab is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the Carrie Secrist Gallery. The show comprises figurative paintings and photographs conceived during a visit to Smith's hometown of Port Antonio, Jamaica last summer. Engaged in a purposeful practice of watching, Smith includes representations of both airport workers and family members, as he articulates a desire to understand public and private identities in his native country.

New genre scenes cast Jamaican airport employees as symbolic representations of the working class. Composed with large brushstrokes and simple shapes, four monochrome paintings depict the tarmac workers’ striped vests. The paintings’ titles correspond with geographic coordinates for Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston. Drawn to grand proportion, a final painting considers the workers’ posture and demeanor. Placed in a deliberately abstract environment, the workers’ obscured faces examine hierarchy and class.

In addition, Smith exhibits manipulated photographs, created with his picotage technique. Using a mechanical tool, Smith repetitiously picks away the top layer of each photograph in a precise, exhaustive pattern. He scrapes away photographed skin to reveal tears that shimmer as if flecked with glitter. A new form of documentary photography, Smith’s picotage works engage his own social history and descent from Jamaican emigration.

By concealing the faces and features of his subjects, Smith references masking and scarification. For the first time, Smith also distresses the backgrounds of his abstract portraits, creating holographic images. This act of negation further camouflages identities and complicates his examination of anonymity and exchange.

Paul Anthony Smith (b. 1988, St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Previous solo presentations include McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas, TX. Recent group exhibitions include Kemper Museum and Grand Arts, Kansas City, MO as well as the Dallas Biennial 2014, Oliver Francis Gallery, Dallas, TX. Smith was the recipient of the Charlotte Street Visual Artist Award (2013) and participated in Art Omi International Artists Residency, NY (2013) and A.I.R. Program, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, CO (2012). He earned a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO in 2010. 

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ON VIEW: Paul Anthony Smith

Paul Anthony Smith, Untitled #6, Picotage, 2012, 10 X 8  inches.  Image via secristgallery.com.

Works by Paul Anthony Smith are featured in the exhibit New Work from Kansas City on view from June 8 to July 27, 2013 at the Carrie Secrist Gallery in Chicago.

From Carrie Secrist Gallery website:

Manipulated photographs by Paul Anthony Smith investigate autobiographical, ancestral, and cultural self-identification. For the works in this exhibition, Smith employs a technique called picotage, wherein he uses a ceramics tool to pick away the top layer of photographic images. Referencing African scarification and masking, these tears shimmer as if flecked with glitter. His obscured black figures are abstracted cultural portraits, feeding the artist’s interests in family history and heritage, as well as his broader research into African Diaspora. 

 

Paul Anthony Smith is the recipient of a 2013 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Award and a 2013 ArtsKC Inspiration grant. Following his debut solo exhibition with ZieherSmith, New York in early 2013, Smith was named by Huffington Post as one of the 30 best Contemporary Black Artists Under 40. He will participate in the Art Omi International Artists Residency this summer and present a solo exhibition at The MAC in Dallas this fall. 

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