Themes and Process
Homage to a City
The work is the culmination of a lengthy stay in Florence in 2014. I spent most of my days in Florence looking up! In this city of religious art I found myself drawn to photographing the sky. Elements of architecture are the containers for sky. It seems to me, the sky is the only constant wherever we are. Its “nothingness” is the universal.
All of the paintings, save one, are paired with digital photographs that I took in Florence— photographs of a washed out fresco, pavements and walls. The paintings were finished and I later added the “crown” of a photograph. The physicality of the paintings is contrasted with flat photographs. I think about ways of “being” and ways of “seeing”. What constitutes “being” and what constitutes “seeing”—presence and memory. They augment each other, but the relationship of the digital images to the paintings only infers a possibility of understanding.
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
Jo Smail April 2015
