Emily Mae Smith, Head Horizon World, 2020, Oil on linen 67×90 inches An inscription across the top of the opening identifies this place as The Studio. Meanwhile elsewhere there is a greyish painting titled Painters Quarry consisting of a crypt-like opening almost filled with stacked skulls and bones. The title, Heretic Lace is taken from a pop-ish painting of the same name which, consisting of a segment of a slickly painted thigh with a garter belt, pulling taut a stocking whose lace-like pattern consists of rats and sheaves of wheat. For instance, her present exhibition titled Heretic Lace consists of paintings that employ her signature anthropomorphic broom character in various settings and styles, as well as other graphic images that she uses to comment on the world of the senses. On occasion she knowingly and skillfully brings a subtle sense of profundity to her subject by producing a balance between style and imagery that at times generates speculation, interpretation, and self-reflection, while at other times one merely chuckles, or sighs. Knowing that painting and painters no longer need to be singular in purpose, Smith’s intentions seem in a constant flux, at times implying feminist and political critique, at others sentimental, cliché or a teasing surrealist juxtaposition of images and optical patterns reminiscent of 60s-70s Japanese graphic design. This stance is central to her conception of the work painting does. By appropriating differing styles and devices, Smith sends the message that one style does not fit all messages - the potentiality and the adaptability of her medium is its message. Rather than being bound by the strictures of vanguardism and notions of art’s progressive development Smith chooses to exercise her prerogatives to invent when necessary, and to repurpose at will. Regardless of her chosen style, Smith juggles the recuperation of varied technical standards, the disposition of the masculine norms of Modernism, and the feminist critique of the masculine gaze underpinning so much Western art. Meanwhile, she also stylistically mined historical references to post-Renaissance and neo-classical painting Rene Magritte’s semiotics (e.g., picture puzzles), Philip Guston’s studio symbolism, the style of such lesser-known figures such as the Italian pop artist Gnoli, as well as the patterns to be found in 1960s-70s art posters. and at other times to enigmatically introduce such subjects with little or no commentary. To greater and lesser degrees Smith uses her glossary of icons in some cases to engage in heady meditations on such topics as death, vanity, desire, history, etc. Joined with icons associated with desire and fear, Smith has used this figure as both a male and female trope, as well as an alter-ego. This broom, a descendant of the demonic mops portrayed in sorcerer’s apprentice section of Disney’s Fantasia (1940), has become a signature image in her work. Understanding this Emily Mae Smith in 2014, introduced into her developing iconography an anthropomorphized, androgynist broom consisting of a featureless phallic shaft attached to a twig brush. Walt Disney has taught us that cartoons can be used to distract us while conveying the most serious of subjects. “She’s got lots of spirit and says what she thinks,” Chuck said.Emily Mae Smith, Heretic Lace, 2019, Oil on linen, 48×37 inches The day was marked with cake, snacks, coffee and tea, with Smith even getting her own party throne.Īnd according to those who stopped for a birthday-themed chat, Smith’s witty sense of humour was well on display. Smith was greeted by dozens Wednesday, with the Concorde Retirement Community’s main living room dressed with 100th-birthday-themed decorations. “I hope she’s happy to see everybody…it’s like a family reunion today.” “She’s very witty and clever,” her son said. Her son, Chuck Smith, said Wednesday his mother is as sharp today as she was 40 years ago. Many of them travelled from across the Okanagan to mark the occasion Wednesday. Smith had two children, Chuck and Carol and has five grandchildren, as well as another five great-grandchildren. “I’m so fortunate,” the Nanaimo-born Smith told the Western News. John - decided to spend their afternoon at the Concorde Retirement Community to mark the century-long milestone. The full-of-life and personable Smith says she’s stunned by how many friends and family - some from as far as away as Fort St. One of those people is Mae Smith, say the several dozens of people who celebrated the Penticton resident’s 100th birthday on Wednesday, May 3. Some people just always find a way to leave a smile on your face.
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