David Smith’s paintings explore the elements of space, light, scale and material through a restricted format. Elemental subjects are often isolated, cropped or in transition. These provide a fulcrum around which changeable environmental conditions like light, weather or pollution can play. A vast and mysterious space displayed through a small and intimate scale.

The processes involved are central to the work. The approach is often fluid and adaptable, employing washes and the chemical qualities of oil to disrupt, dissolve, shroud or partly erase the paint surface. This facilitation sets the stage for a flexible outcome. The small scale of the paintings is a deliberate attempt to depict vast, elusive spaces on an intimate scale. Simple compositional design, coupled with minimal, often neutralised colour and the unyielding surface of solid plywood panels, allow the paintings to grow and inhabit more space than their size suggests.

-Amelia Johnson Contemporary

Image: © David Smith
Courtesy of the artist and Amelia Johnson Contemporary