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17/5/2004

Anj Smith

IBID Projects, Vilnius

The Megalography of Cuteness

Anj Smith will exhibit a series of small paintings and etchings for her first solo show with IBID Projects. Smith's paintings are vignettes of women that are accessories to their outfits, becoming them even, caught up in the delirious moment of 'embodying a look'. Here, coolness has become the new drug, with all its alienating and ecstatic possibilities. With the eye of a miniaturist she observes the relationship between street and couture cultures, as played out by female subjects both threatening and tortured by the clothes they wear and the poses they strike. Smith's meticulous, almost neurotic, attention to detail only heightens the anxiety and unease of this exploration into the dark underbelly of fashion's quest for the new. Apparent references to current street styles and memento mori morph in a hysterical hybridity inevitably producing an unsettling anxiety. Thick slabs of sleezy impasto erupt from the obsessively handled minutiae, as do scratchy barren areas and rude slicks of gloss, offering a disturbing vision of aspiration and excess.

In Polysteria, 2004, the chemically charged skyline highlights a horizon scattered with distant high-rises, gloomy and ominous. Indefinable weeds sprout from the land uncontrollably and sporadically, echoing the ornamental patches of pubic and facial hair. Transgressions of established ideals of identity are made more resonant by the remains of a torn wire-fencing grid, once erected to define boundaries and perimeters. Rysomania, 2004, offers a glimpse of the ubiquitous Burberry check gratuitously lining an unfeasible garment, situated somewhere between a can-can costume and that of a Victorian prostitute. This collapse of time and place, combined with Smith's laboured painting only furthers the disconcertingly dysfunctional aspect of her subjects. This intensity is also reflected in the microscopic attention to detail in certain areas in her painting, on closer inspection, the viewer becomes aware of previously hidden imagery.

Anj Smith is currently studying on the MA Fine Art program at Goldsmiths College, London. She recently participated in Mothers, a group painting show curated by Harry Pye. In July, Anj Smith is showing in The Analysis of Beauty, a group show at The Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland.

Anj Smith's solo show is accompanied by a group show Esoterica, which will explore ideas of New Age, neo-pagan magic and spirituality in contemporary imagination. Participating artists are Magda Francot, Edward Summerton, Ali Mackie, Janis Avotins, Vicky Wright, Djordje Ozbolt, Tim Braden, Sam Dargan, Laura Youngsoncoll, Kristine Kursisa, Andy Cooke.

private view: Tuesday 18 May, 6.30-8.30

Open: Wednesday - Sunday, 12 – 6pm
Private View: 18 May 6.30 – 8.30pm

For more information or images please contact the gallery on +44 (0) 208 983 4355

IBID Projects
Unit 4
210 Cambridge Heath Road
London E2 9NQ, UK
t/f: +44 (0)208 9834355

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