Harp Figure

About the Work

From the Artist

I believe in intensification, that’s using particular colors at their highest level of intensity. Red is different from pink, which is different from maroon but it's all red. When I use red, I use red at its highest intensity. I like the word intensification. When the white world was talking about minimalist, I was thinking maximizing.
—Excerpted from https://www.invisionsarts.com/frank-smith, accessed 6-15-2021

Frank Smith was attracted to paint texture and pattern as a young artist, seeking out a broad spectrum of European influences such as Van Gogh, Picasso, and Seurat. Raised in a family of musicians, Smith was especially attracted to Kandinsky’s association of art and music through abstraction. By working on several pieces simultaneously, Smith combines disjointed rhythms and syncopated patterns of paint and mixed media by sewing the canvas together, using a sewing machine–though he does not deny the process’s or end product’s resemblance to quilt-making.

Smith insists that the process comes out of necessity to sturdily adhere fabric together. Improvisation from a Patch Quilt is a colorful example of his assemblages. Bright zigzag stitching joins colorful patches of painted patterns and found objects. Smith’s work simultaneously pays homage to his African heritage and African art education while serving as a vehicle for his own challenges as a contemporary abstract artist.
 —Excerpted from https://art.state.gov/personnel/frank_smith/, accessed 6-15-2021