Cary Smith
October 15 through November 14, 2015
Opening reception: Thursday, October 15 from 6 to 8 pm

Fredericks & Freiser is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new paintings by Cary Smith.  Smith’s hard-edged abstract paintings find their individual character from their highly intuitive color interactions, boldly direct paint application, and hand-painted precision. 

“Smith’s approach to composition has been primarily based on the need to develop a flexible framework on which to hang color: a modular “architecture” in which color can be manipulated to what are ultimately emotional ends. As varied as Smith’s paintings are, they all share a very specific emotional temperature that balances between the intellectual and the visceral. The consequence of this state is that those viewers who are conceptually oriented often perceive Smith’s paintings as being “warm”, while the intuitive observer often feels that they are “cold”. It is this space between the Dionysian and the Apollonian, however, that Smith’s work finds its strength…
 

Smith’s paintings, even those that utilize a gray palette, revel in color. The artist’s color sense is anything but formulaic, with color choices being meticulously worked out and specific forms often being repainted a slightly different shade weeks or months after initial completion. Smith speaks of color “wanting to be fresh” and this desire, which borders on the obsessive, has resulted in a heightened palette that is mildly psychedelic, but at the same time strangely sober. Smith, when he looks at one of his paintings, does not want to see paint, but rather a believable and real color experience.”

                                                               Richard Klein, Exhibition Director, Aldrich Museum