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My man Steve has a show coming up. If you’re anywhere near NYC, you should check it out. Kick him in the nuts and say “hi from big jonny.” I’m sure he’ll be cool with it. Or at least I’ll be cool with it. And that’s almost the same thing in the end.
Steve Smith
You Are Here (The Town)Invisible NYC is proud to host “You Are Here (The Town)”, by multi-media artist, Steve Smith. Based in the Bay Area, this will be Mr. Smith’s first solo exhibit in New York City.
For the past sixteen years, Mr. Smith’s art has drawn from the underbelly of personal emotional dialog, questions of his own physical abilities or disabilities and intellectual shortcomings. Coupled with
an intense interest in the extremes to which people go to toward achieving satisfaction – be it physical, spiritual, emotional, or sexual – this intense artistic exploration and crippling mental
divergence has culminated in “You Are Here (The Town)”.Like the Austrian, and German Expressionists before him, Mr. Smith opens doors to a world that will cause discomfort to many who enter it. He employs a glaring reality that uses humor to convey tableaux, attracting the viewer though generally creating a sense of shamed arousal. He states, “I desire to take this a step further with my newest body of work, and actually force the viewer to take an unabashed look at their own past. Much like looking into a mirror, and barely recognizing the face that’s looking back, my hope is to convey what could only be described as an uncomfortable familiarity.”
“You Are Here (The Town)” is an exhibition of stunning draftsmanship, paintings/drawings of daily life in a superficially functioning town, a town where beneath the surface lies deviant behavior, depression, poverty, addiction, and violence. This is a town everyone knows, one that exists physically and psychologically. The delicate rendered lines of Mr. Smith’s paintings are eerily saturated with bits of color and are presented along with chilling, yet playful, dioramas. The diorama concept itself may conjure up memories of childhood activities and grade school projects, while the scenarios unfolding within illustrate a nightmarish small town story l! ine one could simply hope to never experience first hand. On first impression, the art is stunning, pleasing to the eye. Yet when fully experienced, it is like taking a journey into the mind of a child who is growing to become a misanthropic sociopath.
In the artist’s own words:
I am proof that an adolescents diet should consist of more than comic books, punk rock, and cheap beer. Now I’m all grown up, and my life is a shambles. There was an art school education in there somewhere too, but that’s neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is, I make art because its better than watching Keanu Reeves movies, or going to jail.The exhibition will be on view from October 16th – November 15th 2008 with a opening reception held on Thursday, October 16th 2008 from 7pm-9pm
Invisible NYC 148 Orchard Street NYC 10002
212.228.1358 www.invisiblenyc.com
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Is the title of that one “John McCain Voter”?