Understanding the artist’s latest work from his Bushwick studio to Xavier Hufkens gallery in Brussels
Recently on view at Xavier Hufkens gallery in Brussels, Josh Smith’s Keyhole comprised a new collection of large-scale, colorful abstract paintings and figurative monotypes. One of the best-known contemporary painters of his generation, Smith has walked the line of representational art, text-based painting and abstraction. The artist divides his time between New York and Tennessee, and has a massive studio in NYC’s Bushwick, where he spoke with us about painting, sculpture, keyholes and being uncomfortable in the studio.
Can you talk about how you arrived at this new body of work in Keyhole?
The last body of work that I made were cityscapes. I do things one way… that is good and the other way that is fun. I start to see in one painting something that works and then I can apply it to another painting—it’s a system of checks and balances, but also requiring individuality. Part of painting is the struggle to stop; knowing when to stop. I’ve been trying to take out the busy energy of these more recent paintings. There are moments when I’m working and I feel like that. The abstract works are just me. In the other works there is an image, so it is a collaboration between the image and me trying to keep myself out of the equation. And at the same time, I don’t want the image to become a picture. These are me, marks made with tools that I have, how I feel and what I want to see or don’t want to see.