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Ian Rayer-Smith draws on Abstract Expressionism, Renaissance and his personal experience to confront the viewer with a series of questions proposed within his expressive canvases.
British painter Ian Rayer-Smith is a UK-based contemporary expressionist. His abstract canvases use bold colours and prominent brushstrokes to convey a powerful sense of energy.
The emotional rawness of Rayer-Smith's work, as well as diverse, yet distinct mark-making, is greatly influenced by the Abstract Expressionists of the mid-20th century. While, the composition, light and movement within the canvas comes from observing the art of the Renaissance period. Using these two movements as a base and the main inspiration for his paintings, the artist layers it with influences from contemporary culture and his own personal experience:
"I aim to instil a classical feel into my work whilst finding new visual paths, with the result hopefully being an exploration of the purpose of painting itself."
Experimenting with diverse colour palettes and expressive brush work, Rayer-Smith creates paintings that propose a series of questions rather than providing overt statements or narrative pointers towards any clear kind of answer.
For him, the creative process and its result are all about the never-ending search for something that is alluringly unreachable and hasn't quite taken a distinct form yet; 'search for something which, maybe, I hope I’ll never find'.
Ian Rayer-Smith was born in Manchester, UK and graduated University of Salford with BA Hons in Visual Art. in 2013. Since then, his work has been shown in galleries throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. Some of recent selected shows include: La La La at Open Mind Art Space, Los Angeles, Crush at Laura Rathe Fine Art, Group Show at Suomeim 50 Gallery, Shanghai and Composition at Galerie 208, Paris in 2022.
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