The unrelenting Catharsis Print

Working in a vortex of color and often on over twenty varying sizes of canvas at a time, Smith, not unlike the dreams he credits with inspiring his work, paints in a fever of remembrance, memory, mysticism and metaphor. Taking clues from architecture and religion, Smith’s paintings are a reflection of art and faith. Taking clues from architecture and religion, Smith’s paintings are a reflection of art and faith. The US American master of oil painting Joshua Smith translates his imagination on to canvas. Through the medium of painting, Smith developed his own language which speaks of fantasy and nature, blending surrealism into the physical world, with playful imagery and fragments of playful subject matters. His paintings on canvas often presents landscapes with chairs, birds, butterflies and clouds, an imaginaire world where beings are either dreaming or existing in a parallel world, a virtual universe in which dreams and reality fuse. Joshua Smith reminisces the childhood experiences, where we fantasize our surroundings, where the sky is the limit. In this sense Smith’s work is like a journey through some unknown metaphysical reality, in belief of the omnipotence of the (day) dream. As if to emphasize the landscapes, birds and butterflys extreme sensitivity, the colors are overlaying like powder. These colors remain in delicate, nuanced and atmospheric style. The paintings’ dense, fragile surfaces and areas of multichromatic richness recall to ancient wall frescos. Take your seat. Welcome the muse. PhD Barbara Aust-Wegemund A graduate of the Hartford Art School, University of Hartford (Connecticut) with a Masters in painting, Smith first studied at the Laguna College of Art & Design. With over 30 group exhibitions and more than 20 solo exhibitions in the past 10 years, Smith was awarded the prestigious Best New SOLO Artist at the New York International Art Expo 2007. Joshua Recently exhibited at the Carousel Du Louvre with the Societe Nationale des beaux artes in 2012. Smith was awarded with the Fine Art Medal for the painting "The Hiding Place" at European Société of Arts Science and Lettres Paris (2012). He was involved in numerous projects and lecturing as Art Instructor at The Guilford Handcraft Center, Art Professor at The Hartford Art School and Exhibition Curator at Nathan J Gallery.