Laurel Smith at Peak Gallery
"The works making up her wittily titled exhibition LS is
More, the first Toronto solo show by this Calgary-based artist, are like horizontal slabs
of gelatin: Thick but evanescent lozenges of saturated colour, the kind of
colour that seems to be in perpetual suspension within its matrix. Smith says
her slabs glow because of the up to 20 coats of acrylic paint applied to
the sheet of
Plexiglas that supports them. This buildup of pigment, thicker
than anything you'd comfortably refer to as "coats" of pigment, results
in the kind of sweet, slick surfaces you associate with the hand-rubbed, infinitely
deep, glossy, tangerine-flake surfaces of custom cars. Adding to this deep effulgence,
is the fact that Smith bevels some of the edges of her paintings (the
paintings all bear the generic title Kerf, which means "the cut or the
width of a cut made with an axe saw or cutting tool"), usually the tops or one
of the sides. She paints these bevelled edges in an alternate colour from the painting's
surface, so that when the gallery lights are trained upon the pictures,
you get an attractive flair of extra colour thrown up on the wall. Each little
painting (they are all only 20 cm by 61 cm) is thus a veritable riot of
performative colour: Less is more and, in Smith's hands, less is luscious.?
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"There is a more and a less to the work of Laurel Smith. The more
is about extending Minimalism into the 21st century. The less (or LS) of Laurel
Smith is about her new show, LS is More, at Peak Gallery through February 19th,
2006.
American Painter Frank Stella famously characterized the Minimalist art
movement with the phrase "What you see is what you see". Minimalism is
typically defined by its reductive style, reducing a work of art to the minimum number of
colors, values, shapes, lines and textures. Beginning with Russian Constructivists
at the turn of the 20th century, the Minimalist movement grew roots in the
West in the 1960's. The stripped down, elemental, fundamental style creates immediate visual impact without any particular representational form. Smith's new
body of work extends the Minimalist concept into today's digital age of excess.
As Smith herself says, "I believe that minimal painting today is more
vibrant and relevant than ever before".
The LS is More series is based on pantone colors, each with a unique formulation suggested by reductive titles like "Kerf 1235C230C:812". The
paintings are presented as large rectangular color-chips; linear bands of color that
stretch
beyond the borders of the canvas by emitting an intense halo when installed. Each work seems to have an inner light source, seeming to float on the
wall, even as the depth of color brings a weighty quality to the paintings. The radiance and glow of Smith's painted surfaces comes from a process
of layering over 20 glazes onto plexiglas. The subtle fades, blur and wear
of each glaze on top of the other create the richness in simplistic form identified
with Minimalism, and certainly a characteristic of Smith's work.
Laurel Smith is a 2005 Canada Council award winner, having studied at
Concordia University and the Alberta College of Art and Design. Her work is held
in notable public and private collections including the Visby Kunst Museum
Sweden; Glenbow Museum, Calgary Canada; RBC Investments, Toronto, Canada; and
the University of Calgary, Canada. She lives and works in Calgary, Alberta
where she was born.
about the exhbition
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