Paul Anthony Smith

Watching Paul Smith in his studio is to see an artist at one with his environment. In his corner on the top floor of a mid-century office building in downtown Kansas City, Paul's space is surrounded by large canvases. The word 'traditional' comes to mind, but with a contemporary spin on that concept. He works on a canvas of four men standing around an airport tarmac, but instead of referring to a sketch – something he rarely does – he instead looks at an image on a digital camera. Thanks to the Charlotte Street Foundation's Urban Culture Project, Paul, along with his fellow studio-mates, have light and space in several unused office buildings to explore their mediums, however it's employed.

Paul has used this particular digital camera for a few years and it's served him well, shooting hundreds, if not thousands, of images. This new series of paintings are from a recent trip to Jamaica to see family and he came back filled with inspiration.

Paul arrived in Kansas City by way of Miami. Born and raised in Jamaica for his first nine years, his family moved to South Florida where he started taking art classes in elementary school, then attended New World School of the Arts in Miami.

He decided to attend the Kansas City Art Institute (Class of 2010, BFA in Ceramics) because, for him, it was an unusual area of the country. Open to trying new things and meeting new people, he sought a major in painting. Within a few months he realized his attraction to ceramics grew and he came to love the medium. Three years into his schooling Paul wanted change. He did not want to be labeled "ceramics artist." After graduation, he was awarded a space in the studio residency program, deciding to jump into painting upon acceptance.

Paul takes his canvas of the four men off the wall and places it carefully on the floor. As a non-painter myself, it's pretty remarkable to watch someone focus on a large painting and hold a conversation at the same time. His strokes are quick and assured, returning to a messy table nearby littered with paints, brushes and assorted ephemera, to mix paints.

Paul cites the tremendous challenges in re-directing himself towards a medium he had ignored for three years. However, he found himself amalgamating both disciplines. He started by creating crushed can paintings which are based on his oil drum sculptures, a few of which were exhibited in the 2010 Flatfile exhibit as well as the Spring 2011 extravaganza, America: Now and Here. One oil drum sculpture sits in his studio like a strange prop; a grotesque head and shoulders piece emerging from a barrel. In exhibition, the barrel is filled with motor oil, admonishing viewers to acknowledge man's addiction to fossil fuels. The piece is ripe with meaning, integrity and a certain freakishness. In the studio, however, it seems to be at rest, a Pinocchio waiting for his Geppetto to wish him into realness once again.

For the past year, Paul bas also been at work on various paintings based on an image found online from the 2009 earthquake that devastated Haiti. One piece in his studio shows a grouping of men surrounded by flattened buildings. The men stand around the debris, unsure of what to do. It's reflective of the state of Haiti before the disaster, teeming with underemployed people faced with limited resources. I've seen this piece several months ago and since that time he added a blue sky that makes his figures appear even smaller and more inconsequential than before. Smith's implementation of the scene's vastness is humbling and puts the entire situation into perspective. Another Haitian earthquake image is of a standing man resembling his father which led Smith to investigate family portraiture.

Attracted to really dark skin hues, Smith says their tonality cast a distinction around the surrounding environment of a piece. It's a rubric that illuminates the other processes he explores in his paintings.

Like the unadorned application of Alex Katz's structure and environment, Smith's work is a straight-forward examination of figurative painting, leaning towards the abstract. His point-of-view references moments in art history, but still moves this dialogue forward without getting muddied in the past. Although viewers might tend to think his work somewhat 'disturbed and cynical,' his various renderings simply express moods and feeling.

When not painting, he works as both an exhibition prepator at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, Kansas as well as a Block intern at the H&R Block Artspace. Aside these posts, he is also on call for various artists around town.

He aligns his basis for making art in the amount of work he performs at a certain time. In an obscure sense that might make an accountant proud; his work for the day is equal to the materials he can buy. He purchases base colors in quantity – black, brown, blue, yellow and white which makes his use of distinct colors more economical. This theory made itself clear to me when he mixed a miniscule amount of neon green with white paint for the aforementioned tarmac piece. Smith makes a little go a long way.

Stretchers are usually donated by other artists or even found. By getting the stretcher first, he can then make the piece. Many great ideas are still waiting to be realized until the right stretcher makes an appearance.

He finds that collectors don't always want to make a purchase directly from his studio (although smart collectors know that is one of the very best places to strike a deal) and so auctions are a place that he can place his work that is more sales-oriented when not in an exhibition. One of his very first big shows after school was at the Belger Art Center, along with Catherine Futter who curated the (Re)Form exhibit last fall at the H&R Block Artspace. He also participated in the 5x7 Project at the ArtHouse in Austin, Texas, KCAI's Annual Auction 2011 and most recently, the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art's Brilliant Beyond Bounds.

For 2012, Paul will be taking off to Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado, an art environment that fosters creative thinking with time and space to challenge oneself. He has also applied for different residencies in both New York and Omaha, Nebraska.

Paul's diversity of ideas is in abundance when you look around his studio, rife with books like P2, an impressive tome of contemporary artists from around the world. His style is also reflected in the artists he admires which include Folkert de Jong, David Altmejd, Paul Thek and Paul McCarthy.

Paul's work is percolating bright ideas and his work, alongside that of his contemporaries, is pumping life into the conversation of art and leading it forward.

Paul is a Spring 2011 Artist INC Fellow.

Visit Paul Anthony Smith's website at www.thepaulsmithart.com.

Written by Blair Schulman, 2011.