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Zak Smith

New Paintings and Drawings

February 26 - March 19, 2016

Zak Smith
Zak Smith
Zak Smith
Zak Smith
Zak Smith, Poison Place, 2016

Zak Smith

Poison Place, 2016

Acrylic on paper

40 x 30 inches

Zak Smith, The Toad Organization, 2014

Zak Smith

The Toad Organization, 2014

Acrylic and ink on paper

30 x 40 inches

Zak Smith, This is the Hour, 2015

Zak Smith

This is the Hour, 2015

Acrylic on paper

40 x 30 inches

Zak Smith, Breakfast Cult, 2015

Zak Smith

Breakfast Cult, 2015

Acrylic on paper

40 x 30 inches

 

Zak Smith, Schoenberg, 2015

Zak Smith

Schoenberg, 2015

Acrylic and ink on paper

12 x 9 inches

Zak Smith, She's Trouble, She's Trouble, She's Trouble, 2014

Zak Smith

She's Trouble, She's Trouble, She's Trouble, 2014

Ink and acrylic on board

40 x 30 inches

Zak Smith, Untitled, 2013

Zak Smith

Untitled, 2013

Ink on paper

8.5 x 11 inches

Zak Smith, It's My Job to be a Girl (Stoya), 2015

Zak Smith

It's My Job to be a Girl (Stoya), 2015

Ink on paper

36.5 x 31 inches

Zak Smith, Mandy and Stokely with Fake Nails, 2014

Zak Smith

Mandy and Stokely with Fake Nails, 2014

Acrylic on paper

30 x 40 inches

Zak Smith, Still Life with Bill Haydon's Painting, 2013

Zak Smith

Still Life with Bill Haydon's Painting, 2013

Ink and acrylic on paper

30 x 40 inches

Zak Smith, They'll Fix You, They Fix Everything, 2014

Zak Smith

They'll Fix You, They Fix Everything, 2014

Acrylic on paper

40 x 30 inches

Zak Smith, Untitled, 2013

Zak Smith

Untitled, 2013

Acrylic and ink on paper

8.5 x 11 inches

Zak Smith, Untitled, 2016

Zak Smith

Untitled, 2016

Acrylic and ink on paper

8.5 x 11 inches

Zak Smith, Untitled, 2013

Zak Smith

Untitled, 2013

Acrylic and ink on paper

8.5 x 11 inches

Zak Smith, Mandy at Home, 2015

Zak Smith

Mandy at Home, 2015

Ink and acrylic on paper

9 x 12 inches

Zak Smith, The Reptile Fund, 2014

Zak Smith

The Reptile Fund, 2014

Ink and acrylic on board

40 x 30 inches

Zak Smith, Retrospective, 2014

Zak Smith

Retrospective, 2014

Ink and Acrylic on board

30 x 40 inches

Press Release

Zak Smith

February 26 through March 19, 2016

Opening reception: Friday, February 26 from 6 to 8 pm
 

Fredericks & Freiser is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Zak Smith. Smith’s work absorbs dozens of ways we see the world--the pixelled eye of jpegged reality, painterly abstraction, the graphic line of illuminated manuscripts and Japanese prints, comics, diagrams and pictograms. With an intricate visual energy, he re-casts this preternaturally absorbing mixture into a seamless whole.

The iconography in this exhibition ranges from abstraction to Smith’s ongoing series of women he knows in the adult film industry.  In Smith’s intricately rendered work, reverence and conviction for his subject matter replaces the distancing effect created by irony and mediation.  Like the zoo-bound ape that reportedly inspired Nabokov to write Lolita by drawing the bars of his cage, Smith is simply interested in depicting what’s there.  What follows are the bright, intoxicating backgrounds and nuanced grays that reach through the picture plane for moments of strange, vibrant clarity and contact.
 

About The Artist

Zak Smith was born in 1976 and lives in works in Los Angeles. His work is included in several public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The Saatchi Gallery, London; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, where his work was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial. His work has also been exhibited at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Contemporary Museum of Art, Baltimore; The National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC; and The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. In addition to his illustrated memoir We Did Porn (Tin House Books), two books of his art work have been published–Pictures of Girls (DAP) and Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel Gravity’s Rainbow (Tin House Books). This is his seventh show at Fredericks & Freiser.

Fredericks & Freiser is located at 536 West 24th Street, New York, NY. Our hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10am to 6pm. For more information, please contact us by phone (212) 633 6555 or email info@fredericksfreisergallery.com, and visit us online at www.fredericksfreisergallery.com, and on Instagram @fredericksandfreiser.