“Throwing Voices” Paintings by Nelson Smith.
District Arts Gallery
December 3 – December 31, 2005.
http://www.districtarts.com/
955 S. Eton, Birmingham, MI 48009
248-258-9300

Review by Christina Hill

So perverse are Nelson Smith’s paintings at District Arts gallery, you might find yourself on the ground underneath one trying to look up its skirt (as it were). If I were a carpenter, you might say to yourself, I could figure out how he makes these things. Apart from the disjunctive imagery -- juxtapositions of upside down coffee pots, for example, to tree stumps, toothbrushes, hats, footballs, pie slices – they are simply, in how they are made, odd paintings. Smith paints them in acrylic on wood, and in a frenzy of craftsmanship, has created miniature cornices that protrude, or intricate indentations into the boards to house detritus -- the sorts of largely unrecognizable things that accumulate in our toolboxes, junk drawers and garages. That stuff we save thinking we might need it some day but never do: Smith has done something with it!

Neither Smith’s use of mysterious, poetic imagery nor of found objects is distinctive. After all, when the surrealists described their aesthetic project as “the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella,” they were quoting the Comte de Lautréamont (a pseudonym) from 1869. And René Magritte famously explored those avenues before World War Two. Robert Rauschenberg, we know, combined a mirror, a stuffed bald eagle, a grungy pillow and a discarded piece of wood in “Canyon” in 1959. And as Rauschenberg did before him, Smith uses geometric bits of color as accents -- squares and dots, to be exact, sometimes painted, but sometimes precious little inserts. In one of Smith’s paintings, however, metal objects, vents of some sort embedded in the surface, serve endearingly as decorative circle shapes.

Smith’s use of schematic drawings, such as maps, diagrams of the central nervous system or defensive basketball maneuvers, as backgrounds for his surrealist imagery, and as counterpoints to his implanted junk is also not especially noteworthy. The contemporary artist, Julie Mehretu, has zoomed to the forefront of the art world by layering imagery on top of meticulous drawings of the plans of ancient buildings or of all the stadia, ancient and modern, in the world, to name but a few of her achievements. Likewise, Smith’s use of the divisional device of the diptych is nothing new, although it is interesting to find that these are faux divisions, achieved by a thin painted line, an electrical part, or the edge of an indentation serving to dramatize an actual plumb line insert. In Smith’s hands, the device has become a repetitive conceit integral to his work.

Nor is Smith’s use of trompe l’oeil novel, although the combination of illusionistically painted objects and the real thing is quite interesting, both theoretically and visually. Smith is simply not such a great painter that we might actually be fooled, unless by his simple yellow pencil. He can’t (or won’t?) paint the transparency of a clear glass as Velázquez could (which is asking quite a lot). And his paint is not gorgeous. That’s his choice, perhaps, and possibly another conceit, as Smith’s focus is not so much on formal issues, but rather conceptual, as he is so obviously in control of his many materials. And there are areas of scuzzles and smears and some curvaceous lines that are moderately enticing visually. While his color choices aren’t conventionally stunning or beautiful, they are sometimes singular.

The images of objects and the real stuff from everyday life Smith has put together do not actually add up to anything that “makes sense,” but there is nevertheless joy in contemplating them. Magritte firmly disputed that any certain meaning could be derived from his work. Enigma was sufficient closure for the master so why not for Smith? The reason, though, that Smith’s many floating books might be representative of the impact of this work is this: there is never the absence of opportunity to read into these paintings as much or as little as one likes, and to be both intrigued and amused by them.

There is also whimsy to balance the severity of his intellectual processes -- outlines of perky plump pigs with curlicue tails, graceful, Amish-inspired “stencils” of upside down tulips, and some fine tracery of the delicate of roots emanating from the tree trunks. And, in one case, the surprise of an actual frilly bud of a shaft of weed to contrast to all the rusty plumbing parts. (And his use, in addition, of written texts scrawled on the surfaces that has not even been mentioned here, but which only adds to the confusion or the charm, depending on your point of view.)

No, an analysis proves that none of the various material, stylistic or philosophical components Smith has used to fabricate this body of work is in and of it itself original. His unique conflation and articulation of multiple influences, though, does result in extended wonderment for the viewer. It is a mind-boggling experience, until one’s mind and one’s eyes simply must quit, overloaded.
- Chris Hill