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concerning the form or theme of the window which
painters and authors from the fifteenth century
onwards have not stopped talking about since.
Indeed, Renaissance man invariably thought of
painted images as resembling scenes viewed
through a window (albeit an open one in this
case). It is a fact that the rectangle of a window
limits our vision, it "frames" it and focuses it
within its confines. David Smyth is also conscious
of this desire to frame what can be seen in order to
give it a greater visual intensity. But the modern
world, of which David Smyth is an attentive
observer, is even more stringent when it comes to
containing the forces and dynamism which are
present in it.They are too powerful to be contained
within the simple frame of a window.They tend to
disperse. David Smyth substitutes grids for an
open window just like Paul Klee before him. For
there is a feeling in contemporary art that colour is
endowed with a kind of explosive force, related to
those "terrible passions" spoken of by Vincent
Van Gogh. In order to contain it, this force should
be channelled into a sort of grid or draughtboard.
The shape of an irregular draughtboard comes up
frequently in David Smyth's works, this irregularity
going hand in hand with the fact that the expanses
of colour always go beyond their apparent limits.
Or else it is the collages made out of torn paper
that catch the eye because these pieces of paper
sport letters. THE AUTHORITY OF LETTERS David Srnyth's paintings often have writing on them.Torn up pieces of posters or pages out of magazines are pasted onto his canvases. Sometimes they include photographic images |
and they always include fragments of words,
which are only partially legible.This leaves
just letters behind, white on black or black on
white, which makes therit stand out when we
look at them. As the letters never add up to anything more than fragments of words, this means they simultaneously cry out to be read yet refuse to be read. In this respect, David Srnyth's position is unique, undoubtedly symbolizing the ambiguous relationship which binds the visible to the word and the gaze to the letter. This ambiguity has to do with what the visible and the speakable call each other but also with what keeps them both apart. Something about the gaze, David Smyth seems to be saying, appeals to the spoken word, but the spoken word will never take over from vision just as vision will never take over from the spoken word. Because he is a very modern spirit, David Srnyth makes this relationship even more ambiguous. The fragments of writing which are pasted on the surface of his paintings come from an advert or the pages of a magazine about which we know nothing: we only know that it is about "things" which catch our eyes when we are passing through urban landscapes. And because they are expressed on paper, they come partly unstuck and become torn into pieces. However, unlike the so-called "affichistes" in the sixties and seventies, David Smyth does not go in for what could be called the aesthetics of torn up posters. In his case, the torn up poster does not constitute the body of his work. In an infinitely more critical manner, his collages actually revive the ancient question of the status of writing as related to the visible. Therefore it's certainly not by chance that | ||
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