Half a century since I first felt a sense of wonder at the promise of paint, I continue to pursue the alchemical dream. My concern is with what it is possible to imply about the associations between what we see on the edge of our vision and the fugitive, puzzling nature of memory and perception.
I work on small wooden gesso panels using oil paint. The choice of this size is to create a concentrated power, inviting the viewer into a personal, intimate space. From a distance, the distilled colour gives the work a powerful presence beyond its scale, as with the pages of a book. Closer in, the gaze is drawn to the contradictions and alliances below the hermetic surface, the mapping of decisions, the traces of the process which remain on the sides of the panels. The ideas form a dialogue with the medium, the conceptual becoming inseparable from the material.
I am fascinated with the continuity of centuries of the use of paint precisely because of the challenge to extend this much-explored territory. My aspiration is to explore the possibilities of implied narrative and subtle metaphors of transformation - the alchemical dream.
“...and this is an occupation known as painting, which calls for imagination, and skill of hand, in order to discover things not seen, hiding themselves under the shadow of natural objects, and to fix them with the hand, presenting to plain sight what does not actually exist.”
Cennini , The Craftsman’s Handbook 1437
BIOGRAPHY
Alan Smith works full time as an artist in Folkestone. He studied Fine Art in England and began his teaching career at Brixton College, London. He has been an advisor to the Inner London Education Authority and has lectured at art schools in England, Chicago and Paris. His work is in collections in Europe and the USA, including Almeida Theatre and Spitalfields Workspace in London; Winston & Strawn, and Harper College, Chicago.
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH REVIEW
His 2014 Triennial Fringe show Daedalus Atelier was reviewed in the Sunday Telegraph:
“Alan's working technique is fastidious, his work contemplative. Around the walls, small gesso panels glow with inner colour, having been painstakingly glazed with thin washes of oil paint in the Renaissance manner – a slow process, as each glaze takes several days to dry. The surface may be scumbled with cloudlike shapes or pricked with precisely calculated dots.
Drawings are hatched in soft pencil to achieve a luxuriance of black.
In both media, forms seem to be on the point of forming or dissolving, caught in the moment that the inchoate acquires substance.”
Clive Aslet, 26 October 2014.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019 Elba Drawings, from the Fugitive Archives series - Folkestone
2014 The Daedalus Atelier – Folkestone Triennial Fringe, England
2012 Fugitive Archives – Galerie Hus, Paris
2008 The Secret Life of Things – Grace Teshima Gallery, Paris
2007 Journal du Quotidien – Sourire en Amande, Paris
2006 Ellipsis series – LIPA Gallery, Fine Arts Building, Chicago
2003 Ellipsis series – Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum, England
1998 Ost series – Karl Hofer Atelier, Berlin
1998 Orme series – Fassbender Gallery, Chicago
1998 Orme series – Combe Lodge Studio, Arts Council of England, Malvern
1996 Interior series – Fassbender Gallery, Chicago
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2018 Affordable Art Fair Battersea - Lilford Gallery, Canterbury
2018 Affordable Art Fair Hampstead - Lilford Gallery, Canterbury
2018 RCA Secret – Darwin Building, Kensington Gore, London
Contributor from inception 1994 to 2018
2016/17 The Painting Diary – Lilford Gallery, Canterbury
2015 Edinburgh Art Fair – Lilford Gallery, Canterbury
2014 Colour and Otherness – Grace Teshima Gallery, Paris
2014 Drawing to Making – Clarendon Studios, London
2014 Passwort 3 Prizewinner – ZI Zeicheninstitut, Kassel, Germany
2005/6 Small is Beautiful XXIII – Flowers Central, London
2004/5 Small is Beautiful XXII – Flowers Central, London
2004 Lexmark European Art Prize – The Air Gallery, London
2003 ArtLONDON – Belloc Lowndes Fine Art, Chicago
2003 Gallery Artist – Belloc Lowndes Fine Art, Chicago
2000 Gutenberg Anniversary – Gutenberg Pavilion, Mainz, Germany
1999 Small Works – Fassbender Gallery, Chicago
1998 Art 1998 Chicago – Fassbender Gallery, Chicago
1997 Cheltenham Open Drawing – Pittville Gallery, Cheltenham
1996 Small Paintings – Fassbender Gallery, Chicago
1996 Art 1996 Chicago – Fassbender Gallery, Chicago
1996 Cheltenham Open Drawing – Pittville Gallery, Cheltenham
RESIDENCIES
2013 Working stay at Casa Zia Lina, Elba, Italy. Stiftung Robert und Lina Thyll-Dürr
2011 Working stay at Casa Zia Lina, Elba, Italy. Stiftung Robert und Lina Thyll-Dürr
2007 Journal du Quotidien – Sourire en Amande, Paris, France
1998 Karl Hofer Gesellschaft – Berlin, Germany
1995 Harper College – Chicago
PUBLICATIONS
2014 The Sunday Telegraph – “The town that art rebuilt...”.
Clive Aslet, 26 October 2014
2006 The Dictionary of Artists in Britain since 1945 (2nd edition)
2004 Ellipsis catalogue and review – 17 illustrations
2003 The Birmingham Post – “Paint to colour the past, present...and future”.
Andrew Davies, 10 March 2003
2003 Belloc Lowndes Fine Art – illustration and cv in catalogue
2000 Gutenberg Anniversary – illustration in catalogue
1998 Orme series catalogue – 13 illustrations and text
1997 Cheltenham Open Drawing – illustration in catalogue
1996 Interior series catalogue – 12 illustrations and text
Photo by Matthew Smith