Jo Smail


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looking at, looking up, looking down - 2014



Artist's Statement



“Something happened in the Renaissance, something that surged up against the constraints that centuries had constructed around curiosity, desire, individuality, sustained attention to the material world, the claims of the body.” Stephen Greenblatt


In 2014 I spent 4 months in Florence, Italy taking photographs.


LOOKING AT, LOOKING UP, LOOKING DOWN

Looking at: “To see the world in a grain of sand… hold infinity in the palm of your hand” William Blake

Looking up at the sky, thinking: “Could there be a number that is nothing? That is less than zero? That begins where there is no beginning because it always was? And was before always?” Clarice Lispector

Looking down: “The way up and the way down are one and the same” Heraclitus


THE PAINTINGS

Influenced by the photographs, the paintings were made in my studio on my return this summer. Bare canvas: a constant reminder of beginnings

I patch: construct, build

I glue: cover up

I tear: like giving birth

I cut: damage or break

I wrap: like clothing

I paint: reveal, excavate

Pattern evokes origins


DIPTYCHS

The physicality of the paintings are contrasted with flat photographs. I think about ways of “being” and ways of “seeing”. What constitutes “being” and what constitutes “seeing”?

Presence and memory.


Jo Smail

October 2014