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Artist Statement:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Exhibitions:
Exhibitions
Solo Shows:
“Metaphorical Acts”
MOBIA: Museum of Biblical Art
New York, NY
December 2006 – March 2007
“Recent Works”
Annarumma 404 Gallery
Naples, Italy
April - May 2006
“Constructed Identities”
Caelum Gallery
New York,
NY
October - November 2004
Group Shows:
Saatchi Booth
Curated by Rebecca Wilson
Saatchi : London at the Pulse
...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
Coming Soon!
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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NEW YORK TIMES
"Dressed for Dinner"
By BONNIE YOCHELSON
ALIX SMITH, 30, was raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan within a cloistered community of privilege. One of four children, she lived on Park Avenue, spent summers in the Hamptons and attended Convent of the Sacred Heart until 11th grade, when she transferred to the Dwight School.
As Ms. Smith grew older, she increasingly felt like an actor playing a part, and it was in other New York neighborhoods that she eventually found both herself and a career as an artist. The distance she had traveled became clear one day in 2003 when she realized she could not meet her family uptown for dinner at a private club without first going home and changing into proper dress.
The incident inspired “Constructed Identities,” a series of portraits of Ms. Smith’s friends and acquaintances, now in their 20s. She asked to photograph them in their living rooms, dressed as they would be dressed to go to work or out for dinner.
As Ms. Smith intended, her sitters’ good posture and guarded expressions convey the trappings of class and breeding. The modulated lighting and elegant surroundings recall traditional painted portraits, which aim to convey status, wealth and profession.
Ms. Smith says her portraits reveal the triumph of custom over self-expression. “The subjects,” she says, “function like objects in a still life, in a beautifully designed interior, in order to represent the idea of social conformity.”
Perhaps Ms. Smith’s portraits reveal more than she or her subjects expect. Each one can be read as a struggle between an individual temperament and the expectations of tradition. We can see this clearly in the one portrait identified for us, Ms. Smith’s self-portrait, bottom right.
Bonnie Yochelson is the author, with Daniel Czitrom, of “Rediscovering
Jacob Riis: The Reformer, His Journalism and His Photographs.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/nyregion/thecity/06prep.html
Reviews:
Dressed for Dinner New York Times By Bonnie Yochelson
http://www.alixsmith.com/links/articlesframeset.html
The Bible Tells Me So By Charlie Finch
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/finch/finch12-14-06.asp
Portraying Identities: the Contemporary Photograph and its relation to the Portrait
By Matt Carey-Williams
http://www.alixsmith.com/links/ourgeneration.html
"A Firm Hold on the Future: The Best Emerging Photographers of 2005" Art Review
http://www.alixsmith.com/links/artreview.html
“More than a new Discovery" ArtNet By Charlie Finch
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/finch/finch7-22-05.asp
Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: New York Times By Helen A Harrison
http://www.alixsmith.com/links/NYTimes.jpg
Power Base: OffOffOff By Nick Stillman
Exibart.com: Beyond the Portrait, Young American Photography
http://www.exhibart.it/notizia.asp/IDNotizia/14847/IDCategoria/57
Art News Info
N+1 February 2005
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