Ray Smith's Wild West

nik.mercer — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:33:23 -0800

We must have a soft spot for the Wild West. A few issues back we pointed you to the work of collagist Javier Pinon, who uses the iconography of cowboys to construct surreally imagined scenarios. This week we’re struck by Ray Smith’s take on the American archetype: a massive (128 X 150”) oil painting featuring a nattily dressed rider whipping a truly heroic lasso into a majestic oval.

Elsewhere, Smith focuses on two subjects that have been done to death in modern art—women and animals—managing to breath fresh life into familiar subjects. We’ll probably be having (pleasant) nightmares about another large-scale, untitled painting, in which a photorealistic, psychedelically colored frog clings to a naked blonde. Smith’s work, according to the Nicholas Robinson Gallery, is based on a “Tex-Mex mythology” that tackles “women, family, erotic desire, politics, the carnivalesque culture of rodeo, and the worship of nature’s magic and mystery.” It’s bold, eccentric, and more than a bit unnerving. Visit the gallery’s website (nrgallery.com) for further information.