Abstractrealism is not a style. It is a method of seeing.
Every painting I make begins with a real subject — a structure, a surface, a moment of light. I study it until I understand its internal logic. Then I rebuild that logic in paint or whatever medium the work tells me to use, without the subject's permission to be literal.
The result is not abstract. It is not realistic. It is the truth of the thing, alive and freed from the appearance of the thing. It is like a pixel cell that appears to be still and solid until you look closely — it is not.
Abstractrealism is a visual and conceptual art form in which the structural logic of a real subject — its geometry, its light, its internal architecture — is extracted and rebuilt as pure form, without losing the emotional and historical truth of the original. It is not abstraction that abandons the subject, and it is not realism that is bound to it. It is the space between: where a lattice of iron becomes a meditation on elevation, where a feather becomes a system of iridescence, where a pixel and a woven check are recognized as the same technology in different centuries. This art form creates an imaginary construct where the elements of time and motion give meaning to selective mental montage. It occurs in movement and is achieved through memory by glancing. In Smith's Abstractrealism, architectural structures are of the greatest importance and provide the construct upon which spiritual illusions are created.
Abstractrealism begins with observation so precise that it passes through representation and arrives at essence. The painting does not show you the Eiffel Tower. It shows you what the Eiffel Tower knows about itself.
I call it Abstractrealism. I have been practicing it since 2002.
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