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Gerry Smith

Country of residence United Kingdom

The paintings of Gerry Smith take their form by imposing a rigorous simplification onto "found" images. The subjects: cities, squares, soldiers or text, have to compete with the optical effects of being translated into a few colours. The choices of "where" and "how" to simplify allow for an unpredictable outcome. These paintings look to the computer screen with envy. Priority is always given to the "hum" of the surface, with each colour clinging to its part of the picture and not allowed to wander.

Gerry Smith's paintings communicate the obvious pleasure that the painter takes in paint, but they also transmit his permanent concern to be an artist eavesdropping on our society. The art of this London painter isn't a simple exploration of the pictorial language, a dialogue of forms and colours, of theme and ground, it is an expression of living: it draws its substance and energy from the life lived in the city, and from the painful awareness of Gerry Smith as a social player. The enigmatic titles spell out this anchorage of the work in the social and open out these pictorial investigations to another level of reading, one that differs from a purely plastic perception.
(C) Michele Minne

Gerry Smith studied at Central School of Art.

Recent exhibitions include :
1994 solo shows at the Cabinet dArt Contemporain, Brussels
1995 and 1997 Danielle Arnaud
1997 Oliver Sixten, Brussels
1998 Stichting Kunstbevordering, Brussels
1996 Sabine Watchers, Brussels
1998 Accident, London
1998 Clink Wharf Gallery, London
1999 The Glass Border, Danielle Arnaud, London
and Nicole Klagsbrun, New York
He has work in private collection in Belgium, USA and UK.





Selected exibitions:
Links London on Loan


www.daniellearnaud.com

 

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