Suzie Smith, one thing, then another, Lisa Kehler Art and Projects, Winnipeg, November 25, 2016 to December 24, 2016
Suzie Smith "one thing, then another" installation Dec 2016
at Lisa Kehler Projects
Suzie Smith’s art makes me feel awash in paradox. According to my husband, when I look at her work I get a strange, loopy grin. Smith’s new body of work – three series of silkscreen prints and one 20-minute animation – maintains a conscientious focus while still feeling wonderfully alive. Her pieces are both calm and energized. Craig Love, another Winnipeg artist, has found the perfect oxymoron for her work: “stoic joy.”
For each series, Smith rearranged predetermined sets of simple shapes, objects and colours. Using this kind of system allows her to be improvisational, even playful, in manipulating composition. Each print is unique, reminding Smith of what she and other system-based artists know so well – a set of limitations offers infinite possibilities. More can be said with a pared-down vocabulary.
Suzie Smith, “Untitled Crayons 1,” 2016
screenprint, 22” x 15”
The prints in Smith’s 2 x 4 series are made with rectangular and curved segments, resulting in surprising, even zany, configurations – a huddle of overlapping ellipses, rows of broken canes. Each aquamarine, chartreuse and coral segment has a scratchy hand-drawn quality that allows glimpses of the white paper below to glimmer through.
Suzie Smith, “2 x 4 series,” 2016
screenprint, 15.3” x 12”
Her 9 x 6 series almost reads like a set of tangrams, with various quadrilaterals and semi-circles combining to suggest familiar objects, a pair of binoculars, for example, or a particularly complex gift box unfolded and pressed flat. As the eye moves from print to print, it becomes apparent that together they demonstrate how compositions are built – through step-by-step, aggregate decisions.
Suzie Smith, “9 x 6 series,” 2016
screenprint, 26” x 20”
Smith’s crayon prints are aggregates too, but somehow seem less built and more animated, almost as though each crayon has its own innate life. Smith has depicted art materials before, but never the lowly crayon. What could be more emblematic of our early instincts toward mark making? These crayons, though, are a rather serious bunch, working in concert to make arrays of straightish lines rather than wild, independent scribbles.
Suzie Smith, “Crayons (grid)”, 2016
screenprint, 20” x 20” (edition of 10)
As in previous bodies of work, Smith’s crayons almost become a funny two-dimensional trompe l’oeil – a drawing becomes a screen that’s inked and printed to look like a waxy drawing again – and this process reflects the content of the final piece. But rather than feeling too clever or illusory, Smith’s work has a perfect lack of pretense. What you see is what you get. And the more you look, the more you notice how her mind moves so deftly – adjusting an angle here, nudging a diagonal there, pushing that shape slightly off centre. One thing, then another generously allows the viewer’s mind to consider every possibility too.
