Resurrection, 2007 Oil on Canvas by Stacy Stewart Smith
Resurrection, 2007 Oil on Canvas by Stacy Stewart Smith
Description
Resurrection
Oil on canvas | 34" × 50" | 2007
Stacy Stewart Smith
There are paintings that depict the spiritual, and then there are paintings that are the spiritual — works in which the act of looking becomes an act of witnessing. Resurrection is among the latter.
Completed in the fall of 2007 following research conducted in Paris in June of that year, Resurrection belongs to a pivotal period in Smith's Abstractrealist practice — a body of work concerned not with the supernatural as spectacle but with the private, interior moment of encounter: the theophany that cannot be explained, only experienced. The painting asks what happens in the human body and mind when something beyond ordinary understanding presents itself — and whether we tell anyone, or keep it entirely to ourselves.
Technically, Resurrection operates at the threshold between abstraction and illusion. Smith withholds the third layer of Abstractrealist pixels — the stamps and daubs that characterize his most fully resolved works — allowing the painting to remain deliberately suspended between states. In their place, he deploys panes of light and shadow contrast, fusing them in the viewer's eye through wisps of varied brushwork. Titanium White and Prussian Blue anchor the composition; Cadmium orange introduces warmth against fields of gray. Palette knife edges catch shadow and generate a sense of weight and volume within an atmosphere of weightlessness. Blurring and contrast work together to propose realism where none is strictly present — the image is illustrative, yet the eye reads it as real.
The vertical composition is characteristic of Smith's Paris period, in which views from the upper levels of the Eiffel Tower informed his sense of scale, distance, and the uncanny. But the intended effect is not architectural — it is perceptual. Smith wants the viewer to experience the painting as a window: to stare back at something familiar while something unfamiliar stares back through it. He calls this a parenthetical in the mind.
Exhibition History
- Exhibited 2008 — Stacy Stewart Smith Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
- Exhibited 2008 — Gallery Guichard, Chicago, Illinois
Acquisition
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 34" × 50"
- Year: 2007
- Condition: Very Good — deliberately damaged by a third party in 2009 and subsequently repaired by the artist
- Provenance: Artist's collection, New York City
- Ships from New York City; white-glove shipping available upon request
Care
Stacy Stewart Smith offers made-to-order garments, fine art, and digital publications — each requiring different care. Please refer to the product description for care and handling instructions specific to your purchase. For garments: dry clean or spot clean unless otherwise noted; do not machine wash. For fine art: keep away from direct sunlight and humidity; handle with clean, dry hands or cotton gloves. For digital products and publications: no physical care required; download and archive your files upon receipt.
Design
Every Stacy Stewart Smith piece begins as a drawing and ends as a decision — a deliberate choice of textile, construction method, and proportion made by a single designer with five decades of practice. The same eye that composes a painting composes a coat: line, weight, negative space, and the relationship between form and the body that inhabits it. Garments are produced in New York City, one at a time, to the measurements and preferences of the individual client. No two pieces are identical. No production run exists. This is not manufacturing — it is making.
The atelier sources textiles for their hand, weight, and longevity. Sustainability here is not a campaign. It is the natural consequence of making only what is wanted, from materials chosen to last, by a craftsman who will not put his name on anything less.