Saturday, November 9 | 5 pm
5:00pm – Meet and greet with Paul Anthony Smith and Scott Zieher
5:15pm – Art Talk and Q&A in the gallery
The MAC is honored to welcome artist Paul Anthony Smith and Scott Zieher of ZieherSmith for an art talk and discussion of the current exhibition Walk Bout. Join us before the exhibition opening and reception on Saturday, November 9 at 5:00pm.
Walk Bout brings together an ongoing series of works on paper and paintings by Paul Anthony Smith. The exhibition examines Smith’s identity as a Jamaican-American artist and the political and social struggles of his native country. Sourcing found and historical photographs of Jamaican generals, British Royalty, politicians, and everyday people, Smith laboriously picks away at the surface material of the photographic prints using a technique termed picotage. The process, derived from a method used by textile artists in 18th century France, allows Smith to entirely obscure the subject’s identity using references to traditional tribal artwork and elaborate mask designs.
Smith diverges from the picotages with his series, Tarmac. The large, oil paintings picture Jamaican airport employees as they linger on the tarmac. Smith pays homage to the tarmac workers, laborers of Jamaica’s leading industry, by elevating the subjects to grand proportions and renders them similarly to Jamaican’s intuitive style. Together the dual bodies of work express Smith’s desire to understand private and public identities in his native country.
Paul Anthony Smith was born in St.Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. He was raised in Miami Florida and relocated to Kansas City, Missouri where he received his B.F.A at the Kansas City Art Institute, 2010. His work investigates autobiographical, ancestral, and cultural self-identification in Contemporary scenarios. He is the recipient of a 2013 Charlotte Street Foundation Visual Artist Award and a 2013 ArtsKC Inspiration grant. Preliminary to 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 has participated in residencies at the Art Omi International Artist Residency, Ghent, New York, The Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass Village, Colorado and the Charlotte Street Foundation’s Urban Culture Project studio residency Program, Kansas City, Missouri. Paul Anthony Smith is represented by ZieherSmith Gallery, New York.
Exhibition Sponsor:
Displays Fine Art Services
Exhibition runs November 9 – December 21
Large Gallery
Paul Anthony Smith
Walk Bout
Square Gallery
Jenny Vogel
Before Our Eternal Silence
New Works Space
Bethany Johnson
Forces, the Will and the Weather
OPENING RECEPTION
Saturday, November 9, 2013 6:00-8:00pm
All artists will be present at the opening reception.
The MAC is open Wed – Sat 11am – 9 pm
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
