Anodyne
Wednesday, October 09, 2013
 

Gordon Smith channeling Jack Shadbolt, even down to the quickly rendered, acidically painted sky and strangely angled driftwood / bone / "energy field" figurative element in the foreground.  But the colors are unmistakably Smith's -- especially that Colgate-gel blue and white squiggle just left of center -- and so too are the tiny, wrist-flicking gestures that animate the deep space inside the tangle.  Finest painting in the new Equinox show by about a million miles, and one of Smith's best, ever.  Funny, unlike about 99.5% of the "last ongoing modernist"'s lifetime production, and better for it, too.

(Smith conspicuously making a point of outlasting his critics, me included, & of doing his best work late, like Cezanne.  I don't love every Smith painting -- lots of his early- and mid-90s fake Monets have aged badly, and didn't look so hot at the time -- but I deeply admire his perseverance, relentless self-criticism, & willingness to change.  What does not change / Is the will to change, & etc.  Also his blues, instantly identifiable even at some distance, the color of cold November sky).
- posted by cjb @ 8:53 AM


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