Michael Smith
John LeRoux, Nancy Tousley
Michael Smith
John LeRoux, Nancy Tousley
Montreal-based painter Michael Smith is known for his fluid and impasto surfaces as well as his ability to strike a poetic balance between representation and abstraction. Inspired by art history as well as historic and current events, Smith pulls from various sources to create his energetic landscapes and seascapes. J.M.W. Turner's The Fountain of Indolence, George Chambers's depictions of 19th-century Arctic expeditions, and Jean Paul Riopelle's palette knife abstractions continually shape Smith's understanding of landscape painting, while historically focused projects push the boundaries of his subject matter.
This major retrospective of Michael Smith's paintings demonstrates his ability to mix landscape with abstraction, creating fictional spaces that show how experience impacts the way we view the world. Layering landscapes and seascapes, the familiar with the unfamiliar, Smith's paintings convey (as Smith writes), "a mix of excitement and anxiety of a land, [that] although at times bucolic, is riddled with shadows."
Accompanying a major exhibition organized by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Michael Smith: Sea of Change features 50 large-scale reproductions, an essay on Smith's trajectory as an artist by critic-curator Nancy Tousley, and an interview with the artist by John Leroux.
Michael Smith's work is included in numerous public collections, including those of le Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal, le Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Rideau Hall, and la Citadelle de Quebec.
Le peintre montrealais Michael Smith est renomme pour sa touche fluide et ses empatements, ainsi que pour sa capacite a atteindre un equilibre riche en poesie entre la representation et l'abstraction. Puisant son inspiration tant dans l'histoire de l'art que dans les evenements du passe ou d'aujourd'hui, il utilise une multitude de sources pour creer ses marines et ses paysages agites. The Fountain of Indolence de J.M.W. Turner, les representations d'expeditions de George Chambers dans l'Arctique au XIXe siecle ou encore les abstractions a la spatule de Jean Paul Riopelle sont autant d'oeuvres qui faconnent continuellement sa comprehension de la peinture de paysage, alors que les projets ancres dans l'histoire repoussent les limites des themes qu'il aborde.
Cette grande retrospective temoigne de la capacite de Michael Smith a marier paysage et abstraction pour creer des espaces fictifs qui demontrent l'incidence d'une experience sur notre facon d'apprehender le monde. En superposant la marine et le paysage, le familier et l'inconnu, Smith exprime (comme il l'explique lui-meme) << la febrilite melee d'anxiete que l'on eprouve devant un paysage qui, bien que parfois bucolique, est crible d'ombres >>.
Le catalogue Michael Smith: mer mouvante est publie a l'occasion d'une exposition d'envergure organisee par le Musee des beaux-arts Beaverbrook. Il comporte cinquante reproductions grand format, un texte sur le parcours artistique de Smith signe par la critique et commissaire d'exposition Nancy Tousley ainsi qu'une entrevue de John Leroux avec l'artiste.
Des oeuvres de Michael Smith font partie de nombreuses collections publiques, notamment celles du Musee d'art contemporain et du Musee des beaux-arts de Montreal, du Musee des beaux-arts Beaverbrook (Fredericton), de Rideau Hall (Ottawa) et de la Citadelle de Quebec.
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