Simon Smith
Simon Smith
Simon Smith
Simon Smith (b. 1995, Brooklyn, NY) is a painter based in New York City. He received a BA in Studio Art from Bard College in 2016 and is currently an MFA candidate at Hunter College. Simon Smith seeks to complicate and destabilize his position in space and time, both through the manipulation of painted spaces in the studio and through a probing engagement with public space. Recently, his process has been catalyzed by in-depth investigations of locations around New York City, through walking, street photography and historical research.
Peanut
2021 Acrylic on canvas 71.1 x 86.3 cm / 28 x 34 in
The ensuing abstract paintings are densely layered and hybridized, responding to the city’s temporal and geographical warping. Indexical traces of the landscape are enmeshed in areas of painterly improvisation. Geometric and diagrammatic passages are interspersed with inscrutable narrative queues. These competing presentations of visual logic result in paintings that appear at once coherent and intentional, yet also slippery and idiosyncratic
Turtle
2021 Acrylic on canvas 86.3 x 96.5 cm / 34 x 38 in
Mirth
2021 Acrylic on canvas 91.4 x 121.9 cm / 36 x 48 in
Hunter MFA
This spring, the Hunter College MFA Program in Studio Art will graduate 26 artists who completed their degree over the challenging months of the COVID-19 pandemic. These talented MFA Thesis Candidates are exhibiting their work in six group exhibitions at 205 Hudson, in addition to this online spotlight hosted by Hauser & Wirth. At time when the public audience for in-person exhibitions has been limited by the pandemic, we are excited to provide this digital platform to the emerging artists from Hunter College’s MFA Program in Studio Art.
Images: All artwork images and portrait photography by Néstor Daniel Pérez-Molière; Environmental photography by Simon Smith