JOEL IZAK SMITH

IT WAS WRITTEN 2023

Joel Izak Smith has emerged for his first exhibition, by bringing together the tactile
sensibility of domestic materials like house paint and forgotten bed sheets (with all their stories) and washed
over them with a reality that has a foot in each space of the internet and the street debris.
There is a youthful energy in his compositions – like the moment just before the breakdown in the mosh pit
at a punk show. Smith takes this chaos and distils it; combining disparate cultural sources with razor sharp
thought provoking lines and textures that are both universal and personal. It is evident that his worldview has been shaped
by Sub cultures access to high-speed wifi, pinging a multitude of readings to his audience.
What grounds his work is not only the considered flesh tones in his colour palette and opaque ghost like
visage lurking in the background but also the themes of failure, stimulation and the very human questions of
morality. Made in God’s image, yet a mere stained scratched reflection, Smith invites the question of human imperfection vs.
digital algorithmic ideals of society with these pieces.

In this series of 19 paintings Kelly has floated above concrete definitions in both style bringing the highly

mechanical use of the silkscreen technique and brashly expressionistic marks with facetious declarations
and sardonic meditations on the idea of success. Part confessional, part myth making, wholly self aware, the
words serve as stepping stones to critical thinking. The double entendre is placed in the foreground of this
work conceptually underlining the search for truth and it’s often subjective nature. Words as an example of
this hypocritical dualist sensibility the artist offers to his audience.

Stylistically Kelly’s sprayed marks glimpse the etherial of the natural world as well as the manipulated land-
scapes of modern society with the metallic cold and nebulous greens both these points of view evoke. Red

signifying the passion, the danger, the lifeblood as a prerequisite for a gifted life - the all destructive power of
fire reminiscent of the Phoenix. Is society the Dr Frakenstein that creates these “Monsters” only to tear them
down in a mob frenzy? Our own private version of the declaration of independence.