Needing to write an artist’s statement has had me considering what I believe it is that makes a picture successful. Two things seem required; variety and unity, and probably it is the pictorial unity that is the more important. Unity itself is not hard to achieve, but the danger of easy unity is boredom. And if a work of art does not hold one’s interest, I don’t see much point in it. Pictures that I admire all share a satisfying and apprehensible unity. For the unity to be satisfying, it must be surprising, unexpected. This seems to be the case for all forms of art, not just painting. So I try to make pictures that have this.
But I dislike theory. "A work of art which contains theories is like an article on which the price tag has been left." Who can say it better than Proust? -MS March 2024
Mitchel Smith is an abstract painter living in Canada. His work expresses the belief that the surfaces of pictures, the facture of the things, are what is integral to the esthetic experience of painting. Large blocks and lozenges of rich textured colour jostle and abut against each other in a struggle which creates an intense and satisfying pictorial unity. Mitchel Smith was born in Liverpool, England. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Alberta in 1982 and had his first solo exhibiton at the Edmonton Art Gallery in 1986. This is Peter Robertson Gallery's fifth exhibition with Mitchel Smith.