Aaron Smith has an absolutely amazing style and paints with thick and bold strokes of oil paint in hallucinatory colors. I'm not much of a painter, but his work is so inspiring. I would love to own a print of his work one day.
His artist statement:
The Victorian/Edwardian eras have always captured my attention. For years I’ve collected vintage photographs of men of the period. These men for me represent a masculine ideal, if largely a constructed one. Their bearded faces and distinguished attire are spectacular, while their stiff poses and serious expressions belie a certain vulnerability. My recent decision to translate these small colorless photographs into monumental, expressionist portraits is an attempt to ruminate on these contradictions. I also want to draw parallels between the rituals of initiation found in western culture and those practiced in tribal cultures by painting these gentlemen with colors inspired by Bird-of-Paradise and the extravagantly decorated Huli Wigmen of Papua New Guinea.
Shirkster (Prince Albert Victor) 2013, oil on panel, 40"x40"
Uranian (Edward Carpenter) 2012, oil on panel, 24” x 22”
Chippy, 2008, oil on panel, 28" x 28"
Left Handed Likely, 2011, oil on panel, 60" x 48"
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