Patricia Smith's Solo Exhibition as Part of Williamsburg's Second Friday Event November 12, 2010

This Friday, November 12th, The Front Room Gallery will be open late as part of Williamsburg's Second Friday Event.

On view will be a solo exhibition of Patricia Smith's drawings and paintings entitled, "MY TERRITORY IS THE ONE YOU STOLE FROM ME."

In this break-out exhibition, Smith complements her delicate works on paper with a stunning large scale painting on neoprene, which spans twelve feet. Her use of open brush strokes combined with light and airy stippling gives a structure to complex thoughts in the vast, seemingly infinite space between the surface and the depth of this material.

In her persona as a cartographer of the psyche, Smith delves deep into the subconscious to return to the surface with a planar view of unedited impulses and allegiances, exposing unmitigated and raw internal motivations. Her delicate ink and watercolor paintings and drawings act as organic architectural plans developed from emotional inner-workings, these highly detailed works expose the confused density of the mind, clarifying the often incongruous and oppositional standpoints of decision making and alliances.

There is a dark humor to Smith’s work as she turn a critical eye to the self, the atmosphere she builds through layers of stippling and washes of color complements her decisive pen-work used in defining the walls of these imagined plot plans. With these new works, the artist characterizes the physical space within the mind, mapping ideas and thoughts, giving a logical designation on paper to the intangible. Smith takes a position of authority as she uncovers the absurdity that can be found in complex reasoning and emotions, listing and verifying their structural whereabouts with certainty.

In her “Structural Containment for Reactive Clandestinism” organic chambers and enclosures form this proposed system for containment and capture. Smith daringly exposes the relevant placement and wall density necessary to secure secret thoughts and issues from escape; in these schemes areas are labeled as holding fields for “Mitigated truth”, “Clouded issues” “Negotiated risk”, “Trust issues” and “Stored resentment”. Smith emboldens her standpoint of authority for the commission of these plans with marked plot plan numbers and stamps such as used to approve building plans, but in an act of misdirection, Smith alters the terms stamped to such statements as “‘recalcitrant’ or “no fame, no shame”.