Mark R. Smith | Stress Formations | Viewing Room
Mark R. Smith, Large Tent with Lanterns at Half-light, 2023, repurposed textile and acrylic on canvas , 94 x 96"
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Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present Mark R. Smith’s Stress Formations featuring new textile paintings and laser engravings that expand on the artist’s interest in social networks and structures, and the physical organization of crowds.
Installation view of the exhibition Stress Formations.
Mark R. Smith, Stress Formations: Radial Disk, Folded, 2023, laser engraving, acrylic paint and laminated paper,
13 x 13" paper, 15.25 x 15.25" framed
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In Stress Formations, Smith considers the collective weight the events of the past few years have had on all of us and what he sees as a fascinating contrast between what people were doing privately at home to cope with stress—by picking up handicrafts like lacemaking, crocheting and knitting—versus the mass events that were unfolding in public, such as the civic unrest following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and adjacently, the January 6th Capitol riot. Smith’s works on view plumb the tension between social cohesion and division through a careful interplay of materials and forms.
Installation view of the exhibition Stress Formations.
The exhibition features a large fabric painting evoking the shape of a tent or a beehive, with each striped, glowing orange or yellow fabric square growing progressively larger from top to bottom. In this work Smith questions who is included in the safe, collective shelter of the big tent.
RIGHT: Detail images of Large Tent with Lanterns at Half-Light, 2023.
Nearby, smaller works combine laser engraved crocheted doilies with cutout figures from newspapers like the New York Times, arranged to echo the form of the lacework: Smith’s attempt at organizing the unruly.
Newspaper cutouts inside Smith’s studio. Image provided by the artist.
Installation view of the exhibition Stress Formations.
In a final, large-scale work Smith revisits his interest in Elias Canetti’s pivotal 1960 book, Crowds and Power, a poetic treatise on crowd dynamics centered on the notion of touch as a driving mechanism.
Mark R. Smith, Crowds Adhere to Patterns, 2023, repurposed textiles, acrylic, laminated paper, and laser engraving, 64 x 48"
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Smith’s copy of Crowds and Power by Elias Canetti. Image provided by the artist.
Read more about the relevance of Canetti’s Crowds and Power in this 2020 essay by Seth Lerer
Here, in fabric collaged with laser cut figures in simple formations, Smith creates different patterns based on the eleven crowd symbols identified by Canetti: sea, rain, fire, rivers, forest, corn, wind, the heap, stone heaps, sand, and treasure. Though Smith’s new works reflect on the social and political upheaval of the last few years, his engagement with Canetti offers hope that the solution to our collective angst lies in togetherness.
Detail image of Crowds Adhere to Patterns, 2023.
NOTES FROM THE ARTIST
My daughter Rosa Inocencio Smith had written a short essay about historical periods of stress including the Irish potato famine and the two great world wars, where women (for the most part) turned to handcrafts, both as a coping mechanism, and as a means of income and production–consider Irish Lace and the Victory Knitting campaign in WWII. The essay was the starting point.
–MARK R. SMITH
READ THE ARTICLE
Rosa Inocencio Smith
“Getting Through a Pandemic With Old-Fashioned Crafts”
THE ATLANTIC
04.01.2020
Example of a crocheted doilie used by Smith. Image provided by the artist.
Mark R. Smith, Stress Formations: Small Tent, Beating Heart, 2023, laser engraving, acrylic paint and laminated paper, 13 x 13" paper, 15.25 x 15.25" framed
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Learn more about the exhibition in this exclusive video interview with Mark R. Smith
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
Photo by Maria TD Inocencio
