May 2023 saw a highly anticipated debut of Nick Smith’s hit Pop-Up Exhibition POLYTHEISM, in which the artist explores how sneakers have transcendent cultural boundaries and are venerated by many as fashion icons. The show was a deeply personal project stemming from Smith’s long-standing passion for sneaker and has been in the making for several years. But not only the theme of the POLYTHEISM held a very special place for Nick himself, it also perfectly illustrated the artist’s skill of reimagining the mundane and suggesting new narratives and angles to examine it. This approach of making a single everyday object the prime focus of an artwork, places Smith directly within the conversation with both contemporary and iconic Pop Artists, such as Hayden Kays and Andy Warhol.
Emerging in the 1950s in America and then Britain, Pop Art drew inspiration from mass media, consumer goods and overall everyday items. The artists’ use of this ‘low’ subject matter was highly unusual and represented a radical departure from the modern art at the time. The leading figure of the movement was Andy Warhol, an American visual artist and film director. His most well-known works, that over the past few decades has achieved an icon status themselves, involved the repeated images of everyday objects, most notably soup cans, in grid formations, transforming these items into minimalist artworks.
Signed verso by the artist in pencil
96.5 x 96.3 cm
This tradition was continued throughout 80s and 90s by artists such as Michael Craig-Martin and certain members of the Young British Artists collective that Craig-Martin fostered and taught. Celebrated for his large-scale wall drawings, paintings and prints, which combine hand-drawn outlines and intense, unnatural colour pallets, Michael Craig-Martin directly addresses the relationship between everyday objects and their representation. The artist’s vocabulary of household items involved torches, lightbulbs, shoes and phones and has recently shifted to iPhones, credit cards and plastic coffee cups, reflecting the ‘fundamentals’ of the contemporary life. However, he continues to subvert the prosaic and make the familiar seem strange through the use strong primary colour and a total lack of their connection to the object they depict.
Taking an inspiration from the iconic masterpieces and creatives of both periods, Smith began experimenting with his personal interpretation and vision of it, specifically with a collaged version of Warhol’s iconic ‘Marilyn’. This experience paved a way for his career as an artist and played a big role in discovering his personal style, which involves using paint sample colour chips to create a ‘pixelated’ version of an image, object or a famous work of art. Drawing inspiration from his background in interior design, Smith incorporates certain elements and aesthetic taken from years of design expertise. However, his unique artistic approach and the ability to reimagine the aesthetics through the use of hand-made collages and colour swatches places his work firmly into the realm of fine art.
Over the year, Nick Smith has established himself as a prominent figure within the contemporary Pop Art scene, who navigates the world of everyday objects with creativity and skill. Continuing the legacy of Pop Art movement by transforming seemingly boring items we encounter on the daily basis into vibrant, bold and visually captivating pieces of art, Smith invites the viewer the reassess their own relationship with the everyday and discover something extraordinary within it.
Nick Smith's works are available to purchase here or please email info@rhodeseditions.com for further information.
