New art show from Sam Smith

In his first solo exhibition, Sam Smith in collaboration with Project Art Works and blackShed Gallery, presents a unique new body of work that is part painting, part sculpture and part installation.
Sam Smith showing his work at the Black Shed gallery SUS-161003-160302001Sam Smith showing his work at the Black Shed gallery SUS-161003-160302001
Sam Smith showing his work at the Black Shed gallery SUS-161003-160302001

Smith was presented with a cube-like structure of 27 interlocking canvas frames that he has worked on over many weeks as a single painting. The structure was then broken down allowing him to continue working on the 27 individual canvases and utilise the full range of his artistic mark-making, from squeezing and pouring to drawing. For Smith’s exhibition at blackShed, some of these works will reunite as sculptural pieces whilst others remain as single paintings.

Smith’s work was most recently seen in the acclaimed group show, In the Realm of Others, at De La Warr Pavilion, featuring the work of makers with profound intellectual impairment. Sam was born in 1991 and lives with his older brother and their mother, writer Charlotte Moore, near Hastings. He has also shown in My Dad Used to Fish on the Pier, Pier Hub, Hastings (2015), The Room and Everything in it, Dilston Grove, London (2015), One Year Later, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (2013), and Boat, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (2012).

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His vast vibrant squeeze paintings capturing moments of intense visceral action are his signature work, made in swift and impulsive, yet considered moves. This pure physical interaction with materials has transformed his practice from a curiosity for emptying out domestic pastes and cleaning products into a meaningful creative process that reveals something of his personality.

Sam Smith is accompanied by Tessellate (1’30”), a video work made by Tim Corrigan, Lead Artist at Project Art Works and shows the artistic process behind Smith’s project for blackShed. It unfolds within a fixed frame like the static edge of a painting, and reveals Smith’s dynamic processes, questioning the relationship between art and intentionality, and the nature of the collaboration.

blackShed Gallery is at Russet Farm, Redlands Lane, Robertsbridge, open Tuesday to Friday, 10-4pm, and Saturday 10-4.30pm. Free admission. For more information www.blackshedgallery.org.uk

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