Anatomy: Willie Wayne Smith

Library Street Collective is excited to announce Anatomy: Willie Wayne Smith, an online exhibition of new work that presents an intimate look into the artist’s studio, practice, and inspiration. Launching on November 17th, the presentation will feature nine new works by the Detroit-based artist that explore notions of the sublime experience and mirror our own aspirational—and deeply flawed—attempts at transcendence.

Working from stream-of-consciousness drawings to acrylic and airbrush, Smith creates chimeric works that reinterpret personal and universal experience through a complex array of art languages that include abstraction, photo-realism, assemblage, and surrealism. Emanating from his atmospheric use of airbrush is a “state fair” aesthetic reminiscent of the visual culture in central Florida where the artist grew up exposed to customized cars, theme parks, and spray pigment t-shirts. Smith’s inclusion of ubiquitous objects (a concrete block, christmas tree, or beer glass) allude to ceremonial use and echo his figures in their association with the commoner. Set in a sublime landscape, these people and things become elevated, calling to mind the theological and art historical tradition of presenting the ‘lowly figure’ in a moment of rapture. Placing a heightened focus on the inclusion of abstract signifiers, Smith aims to explore the possibilities of narrative and traditional value systems of painting through a cosmic lens.