Fletcher Smith

Artist Fletcher Smith will exhibit his series of 3-D paintings and anamorphic illusions in "Girls, Gurls, Grrls, and Other Objects of Desire" at the ECA+ Gallery from February 4 through February 25. The opening reception will take place on February 8, 5-8 p.m. during the 6th annual Fire & Ice Art Walk in Easthampton. The exhibition is free and open to the public. 3-D glasses will be provided.

As a keen adherent of pop iconography and optical sleights, Smith repurposes personal photographs and found images from the internet"”a dating profile photo of woman kissing a freshly caught fish or a vacation pose near the Egyptian pyramids"”to infiltrate both the world ordinary intimacy and commercial exuberance. In his own words, Smith is "advancing Western Civilization, one painting at a time."

Smith requires his viewers to don 3-D glasses or physically shift perspective to a precise location as a means to see a concealed and sometimes strikingly familiar image. Though influenced by Chuck Close, Ed Ruscha, and John Baldessari, Smith employs the centuries-old practices of perspectival and conical anamorphsis to create his bold, mutative works. In his perspectival anamorphic paintings, abstracted black and white lines cohere into cl...