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gennaio 27, 2023 - Gagosian Gallery

A time for those that remained by Alexandria Smith

Comunicato Stampa disponibile solo in lingua originale. 

Taking root amongst the stars, these two figures, conjoined through love and being, plant the seed that grows the world around them. 
—Alexandria Smith

Initiating a new body of work by #alexandriasmith, A time for those that remained (2023) is a mixed-media painting centered on themes of genesis and symbiosis. Composed on an arch-shaped panel, the work’s sculpted and painted elements extend from its surface to define twinned figures who stand together. Parts of their bodies—wings, kneecaps, and an upturned foot—have been 3D-printed, a process that Smith recently incorporated into her multimedia practice.

Merging abstraction and figuration, Smith’s art addresses issues of identity and myth from her perspective as a queer Black woman. Her imaginative works, populated by figures who embody various states of being, are shaped by an ongoing investigation into the contradictions of the self. Smith initially develops her personal iconography through drawings, which are presented in her own handmade frames adorned with elemental symbols. Anticipating the composition of A time for those that remained, the drawing the Lumens (2023) (fig. 1) features two figures that occupy a primordial landscape, their heads topped by billowing clouds.

Smith’s paintings feature hybrid beings in layered compositions that she makes in accord with an ever-evolving personal symbology. The paired nudes in A time for those that remained face opposite directions, their arched backs and legs echoing one another’s poses as they act with shared creative determination. Smith represents the figures with modulated tones of yellow and gray that stand out from the gradations of saturated green, yellow, and orange of the painting’s ground.

United by their poses, proximity, and mutual effort, the two figures lack visible arms and display few unambiguous indications of gender or age. Their heads are obscured by a single cloud covered with tumultuous black impasto, an element that surmounts the painting and contrasts with the composition’s bright colors and clearly delineated bodies. The wings, though diminutive, signify creative prowess, mutual purpose, and power over unseen elements, while the brightly colored, bulbous tendrils of the plants that flank the pair suggest an additional source of strength. Working in concert to bring a new world into being, the figures offer an emblem of creative transformation and metaphysical growth.

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