Casual X

Geoffrey Todd Smith

born 1973 in Cleveland, OH
Lives and works in Chicago, IL

Statement:

I am fascinated with the impossibility of achieving a purely abstract image. For my upcoming solo exhibition at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, I have created a group of mixed media paintings on panel which employ the letter X within their composition. As X, with its multiple meanings, is manipulated through a variety of color relationships and varying prominence within the composition, each painting is given a personality and mood of its own. Each work begins with a default position of gridded shapes and is often adorned with a horror vacui of zigzags. Employing this limited vocabulary, I delineate a seemingly impenetrable field of optical buzz. This collaboration of rhythmic mark making and seductive color arrangement reveals alternating moments of depth and flatness, leaving the viewer with a dizzying trail of clues to my mindset and influences.

My work draws heavily from personal visual experiences. The paintings evoke moments from pop culture, recent art history, and interests such as video games, jigsaw puzzles, doodling, fashion, wall paper, sticker collections, board games, nature documentaries and just about anything that I have found visually stimulating. These varied moments are absorbed into memories and are reinvented as abstract visual hybrids. Furthermore, the titles given to each work provide insight into my thought process or current state of mind but rarely reveal the entire story. They are intended to capture a certain rhythm, cadence or mood.

Bio:

Chicago–based Geoffrey Todd Smith has been called one of the “rising stars we should be collecting now” by Chicago Magazine. His work is included in numerous public and private collections throughout the United States and Europe, including The South Bend Art Museum, Hallmark Inc., and the Jager Collection in Amsterdam. He received his BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his MFA from Northern Illinois University. Recent solo exhibitions include the 2009 NADA Art Fair, Miami; Western Exhibitions, Chicago; Main Gallery, Las Vegas; and Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago. Group exhibitions include Baer Ridgeway Gallery, San Francisco; Columbia College; Chicago; Fecal Face Dot Gallery, San Francisco; and The Northern Illinois Art Museum, DeKalb, IL, among others.

Western Exhibitions
Luis De Jesus