NEW PAINTING. Solo exhibition by Richard Smith. At Ebony, until January 5. DANNY SHORKEND reviews.
FIGURES that assert a robust, sturdy, muscular presence amidst various backgrounds mark Richard Smith’s foray into painting.
He is a renowned cartoonist, having been named Standard Bank’s Cartoonist of the Year in 1980 and 1984. Smith’s journey into fine arts, in particular painting, since the mid 1980s has reaped rich rewards judging from the canvases on show.
What emerges is a wonderful facility with the brush: heavy mark-making with lines amidst intense overlaying and surface texture. This attention to the surface is heightened by a subtle sense of colour co-ordination, a scratchy integration of various hues and ways of drawing that define hefty figures; mauves, purples, pinks and greyish-green backgrounds that suggest thematic narratives in which the figures find themselves.
Moreover, the complex webs of colour contradict the absolute certainty with which the figures are painted and drawn. There is a further tension between the depressed, weighty stasis of the figure, the dark brooding, muted backgrounds and the suggestion of spiritual flight, lightness of touch and bright stretches of colour.
The sense of forlornness as figures appear to struggle, as thin washes restrain their mobility, recalls a kind of Bacon-like figuration and brushwork. In this respect, perhaps Smith laments the position of self in the world, as if “the body” (mind) has become a mere creature, devoid of life, as if the very sanctity of life is called into question. In this age of tumult and turmoil, the devaluing of “the body” (mind) is the greatest act of terror and one hopes the artist sees a way to overcome this. I believe he does: Consider Nuclear brushwork where a horizontal figure seemingly submerged under the sea (unconscious) is “saved” by a submarine; where in Olympians angelic forms surround a somewhat torturous figure; where is Sharkskins the figures appear to be in flight… and so on.
A further justification that light is to be found can be argued insofar as Smith uses triangles and circles that resonate as universal symbols of hope and salvation; they mark the surfaces as glazed points of light, a heavenly music of the spheres and as signs of another dimension or world.
What is particularly pleasing is the visceral brushwork. Often he uses a single brush treated with a number of colours that reveals a “rainbow” of colours, an interpenetration of colour value. In this “impurity” of colour I see the promise of the an integration of various components, a celebration of complexity and diversity. This is again reflected in the treatment of the solid human forms in relation to the softer, simpler backgrounds so that in the tension between harshness and softness, there is the possibility that the figures – creatures, individuals – shall traverse the path that lies before them.
There is an admixture of inertness and movement – movement both in “outer space” (the external world) and “inner space”. The latter is indicated by the highly nuanced and energised surface quality that defines the figures, or through which the figure is constructed. But the figure is not simply constructed – it is also fleshy, human, real, significant and of value.
Though a far cry from cartooning, there is a residue of satire, a kind of quirkiness, as the figure is scrutinised from a number of viewpoints and within various contexts, as if the personality is in continuous flux, toying with the superficial and profound at will.
Yet Smith’s paintings are not “one liners” or easily adapted as political statements. His work exhibits a wonderful painter’s eye and hand, an eye that investigates the troubled nature of the mind, and a hand that pulls the trigger against those bent on destruction, chaos and the end of liberty. It is the looming figure in Smith’s paintings that stands defiant. It is the “stuff” that is paint and colour as it congeals, conceals, reveals and intermingles through the act of making and shaping structure and form – and by extension – content and meaning that defies entropy.
In these respects, Smith’s paintings succeed in inviting the viewer to experience the works. To that end, one engages emotionally and intellectually and then, one is aware of ones own being or body in space. In that dialogue between canvas and viewer, the circle that is the artist and viewer is complete and a new organism or figure or consciousness emerges. These paintings are a conduit for such communication.
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