ART! Meet “Morphous”

December 21, 2022/Nancy Thomas

Internationally renowned South African sculptor Lionel Smit has returned to Providence in the form of “Morphous,” his bronze and steel sculpture now on display in Kennedy Plaza.

The Avenue Concept brought a different one his sculptures, “Colossal Fragment,” to Providence in 2016 for a temporary display at the corner of Empire and Fountain Streets. It was so well-received and fondly remembered that there was interest in adding one his pieces to the permanent collection of public art in the city. In partnership with Mayor Jorge Elorza and the Providence City Council, “Morphous” will now call Providence home.

“Dedicated to the beautifully diverse community of Providence, my home. All the past and all the future meet at this very moment. Care deeply, question all, dream big, and create the new now.”

Read more >

Lionel Smit is the South African creative unifying humans through art

BY CLAUDE J. EASY for KULTUREHUB

It’s irritating to see other countries progress as we, in America, deny our existence as one multicultural species moving together to reach the common goal of equality.  As other nations adjust to the times, those who are citizens of this elitist, racist, and capitalistic country must find it quite embarrassing that America is backstepping.

There are lessons to be learned as we are midway through an age of neo-nationalism. We as humans and a global community should be afraid of leaders like the US’s former president (we are not mentioning his name) who look to backpedal and destroy all of the work we’ve put in to rid the world of chauvinistic ideals.

One way we can do this is through art. South African sculptor and painter, Lionel Smit

Reposition Solo Exhibition by Lionel Smit

This extensive collection of Lionel Smit's artworks opens with the Uitstalling gallery in Genk, Belgium on 17th July 2020.

To reposition implies a movement from one location to another, and it speaks of some adjustment or alteration that, be it major or minor, caused something or some idea to travel and shift. Lionel Smit’s Reposition features a body of work that explores this theme by engaging with physical and ideological forms of relocation.

Every country has its own sense of identity with unique cultures and viewpoints. How South Africans view their local art will be different from how Europeans view it, as there is a sub-context of knowing the history, having a sense of familiarity, and cultural awareness. So, in essence, you can say that one’s interpretation of a body of work changes considering where from where it is viewed. With a different viewpoint, the work changes.

Lionel Smit – Art Angels 2017 – Curated by Rhino Africa

ArtAngels Africa is an auction initiative brought to London and curated by Rhino Africa for the first time. ArtAngels Africa is the canvas on which education and empowerment are painted, where leading South African artists donate their masterpieces to auction, alongside iconic travel itineraries to Africa, for the benefit of learners in rural South Africa.

Lionel Smit is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice focuses on themes of identity and origins, with emphasis on the Cape Malay community in South Africa. Lionel is best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures.

Words from Lionel Smit about the inspiration behind his art and his experience with Art Angels

I never remember deciding to become an artist. It was something there that was just part of my life.

I used to carry a sketchbook with me and sketch people around me. My love for drawing and painting slowly started growing but I work a lot with portraits, figures and the people that I seek were basically in my surroundings. I started using the Cape Malay girl when I moved down to Cape Town.

The style itself lends itself to these large canvasses or large sculptures, the idea of being immersed within this abstraction when you are up close just works when it’s big. I’m looking for that emotional impact when you walk up to the piece.

The inspiration behind the sculpture Forge is quite a connection to various things that I do, my sculpture became quite influenced by my painting where I use a lot of drips and a lot of swaths of paint. I try to mimic that idea into a three-dimensional form so something that is liquid but also in a very solid state at the same time. The sculpture is a fragment of a figure, so I always try and have an ongoing theme of fragmentation almost like the fragmentation of identities within it.

I don’t think I can really pinpoint why I create art; I think it’s something that most artists struggle to explain why but I think its definitely a therapeutic process for me. For that second in that creation, you forget about everything else and you can focus on something that is more than just materialistic.

Working with art angels for a couple of years now really showed that it actually uplifts the artist as well and the fact that you can change and affect the community through education just through art is a really humbling process.

Lionel Smit State Interview

Lionel Smit, in collaboration with Everard Read Johannesburg, presented the solo exhibition STATE in 2017. This body of work explores the idea of the different emotional states we find ourselves in and how surroundings influence that state of mind.

Through adding video works, Smit created an environment where he influenced the exhibition space, allowing him to direct the viewers’ state. This has a profound impact on how we experience the work.

Various works explore the female figure as a portrait, with the continuation of his ideas on the construction of identity with layers of paint and silkscreen fabricating the fragmentation of the subject.

The exhibition ran from 24 August to 27 September 2017 following a successful show in London, showcasing monumental portraiture, sculpture, silkscreens, and multimedia video installations.

A few words from Lionel about his inspiration behind the exhibition:

The idea of the state exhibition is to create rooms that explore different states of mind or different states of emotion. I created every room with some video work which I’m really interested in exploring those emotional states of mind or to at least put the viewer into a different state as they walk into the room.

For instance, a video with two oceans in slow motion going apart from each other, which was the video I took of the Baltic Sea while I was on a ferry. Afterward looking at the footage and translating that into something that becomes almost hypnotic in a way I think most of the works on the show video-wise were kind of made to put you into this almost state of mind as you look at it you drift away a little bit and then that would obviously influence you looking at the whole exhibition and looking at each room.

You can become so immersed in the work that you become almost too sensitive as a viewer so I try and detach myself from what was created and approach it as an outside viewer which is an almost impossible thing to do but I think the videos I connect with on an emotional level definitely and I think it draws something out of me emotionally while creating and looking at them.

I have always been involved with photography, taking photographs of my subjects to paint. I think that whole process evolved you know so I’ve been painting for more or less 20 years so that process and the idea of using the camera as part of my process has just evolved into video work and I think video has become more popular with everyone having smartphones around and social media.

Everything is quite different with moving images you know, it’s almost like people have become bored with the still image and moving onto the next thing. I think it was a natural process for me to do that and although I have been playing with that idea for years and years, this is the first time I really explored it in-depth and created four major videos for the show.

I am in a transition phase with my work, trying to move away from certain things. I am just naturally being drawn to certain parts that I have not explored yet. Artists get obsessed with things, I’ll get obsessed with portraits and I think I’m trying to divert myself from that obsession a little bit.

I think it just needs to take its natural course. The idea of the whole figure came from way back from my early work, I used to do a lot of full figures and then I started focusing more on the portrait. Then I wanted to explore that again, so I think I took these as you know almost like an old exploration revisited and worked with full figures again.

I really enjoy that because I think the intensity of the figures gives you a whole different idea and a whole different approach to the way of viewing the work. And immediately it translates into something different than only the portraits do. So I basically separated it into different states, the one was only figurative work and connecting with the figures and the paintings, they were figures overlapping on the videos and now these figures become almost dreamy in a way and something you can’t really capture in a painting, you can translate into video and then affect the way people look at the paintings.

Sasol Art Talks | Commissioned Art

Lionel Smit was commissioned to create a very specific artwork for Sasol’s new global headquarters in Sandton. We’ve included a transcript of his thoughts and those of the art curator:

Cate Terblanche – Art Curator

Sasol put out a call for artwork for the sculpture garden at Sasol place. And the brief was for artists to start thinking about the role of Sasol. Sasol as a company but also actually in terms of the social responsibility that Sasol has towards society in general. We had about five artists that we engaged with and the last one that we are installing today is the work by Lionel Smit, called reflections of self. Lionel was chosen because he is one of South Africa’s most significant artists at the moment but also the work spoke to so many aspects of life and work in Sasol.

Lionel Smit - Artist

My work mostly revolves around the universal idea of who we are and our identities. I grew up sculpting quite a bit and then I wanted to break away from that whole idea and kind of like rediscovering myself. Discovered painting and painted for about 10 years after school and created a career so I think when I started sculpting again I had something to say and just recreate what I’m doing already in two-dimensional form into three-dimensional form. I approached this from the point of view of the people that work for Sasol and the idea of this machine and the people as a workforce almost. I feel people always identify with the idea of looking at a face and the idea to create a whole bunch of faces that actually represent the people in Sasol but also in a way represent us universally as a wholistic idea. The sculpture is basically a cylinder of faces and when you see them there will always be something you can connect yourself to. As you walk into the piece it almost reflects the idea of the earth on different levels and the boulders you find underneath. This core of vibrancy and connection and the silver on the outside becomes almost like a clean slate, so the whole idea of the modern versus the earth that kind of like reflect each other is part of the whole piece.

Cate Terblanche – Art Curator

The inspiration comes from the physical act of mining but it also actually engages with the whole idea of the people involved, not only the people inside the company working for the company but people that we are responsible for in terms of a wider society.

Lionel Smit - Artist

I think the piece has various layers it is not supposed to be only one thing. The name also comes from the idea of reflecting yourself so I wanted people to go to the sculpture, walk inside, stand around and look at it and experience the sculpture rather just to view it and walk past. So that idea to conceptualize something that will work inside a space took me some time and then eventually I started making sketches and then eventually I came to making the scale model. Executing that actual piece was quite a challenge because the sculpture was so big and getting it into the building and all the technicalities surrounding that so I actually cut the piece into five pieces and then reassembled it at Sasol again so it became very site-specific. It’s going to take two days at least to install the sculpture, its basically a team of about 10 people that are helping me today. Four that came from Cape Town with me and then another six that came from my father who’s also a sculptor. We will put the whole sculpture together and then we’ll paint it the next day and do the patina on the work and then it will be finalized so it’s quite a big operation.

Cate Terblanche – Art Curator

I am so excited about this piece because I think it is going to take on a life of its own. To be able to go out into the gardens at Sasol to just enjoy the art piece for what it is. What the artist wants people to do is, think about not only their own role but also the way that they relate to other people and that will really be so wonderful.

Lionel Smit Virtual Exhibition 2020 - Everard Read - Verso

Falling under the title VERSO, this solo exhibition by Lionel Smit explores and celebrates the tactile nature of oil painting – its ability to render something visible and touchable that was seen or experienced.

Stemming from early Latin roots, the term verso means reverse. In an art-historical context, it can refer to the left-hand page of an open manuscript (the verso folio), while a work of art can also be signed on the verso, meaning that an artist prefers to sign their work on the back. The term always makes sense in relation to its counterpart – the recto – which is the immediate front or the first encounter, so to speak. The verso is the side of a leaf (as of a manuscript) or a surface (such as a canvas) that is to be read second and seen later. The verso demands a different form of contemplation, as it is that which is not always immediately obvious.

Lionel Smit at Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami

I think the main idea behind the Accumulation of Disorder that it almost represents us as a whole, as a society, the idea of globalization. And each one is painted differently, and each one of these could represent different things, different people. 

This exhibition is quite fragmented as there are different pieces that I made in different times that came together, but there is a story or a bigger picture and I think that speaks about identity.

There’s an oval base going at the bottom of this and then around that, I’m going to put paprika spice around it. And once again that connection with Cape Malay women and the spice route.

Interview with Lionel Smit for Manipulated Image solo exhibition at Everard Read Johannesburg

‘MANIPULATED IMAGE’ at Everard Read Johannesburg

Everard Read is delighted to announce the fourth solo exhibition of Lionel Smit in Johannesburg. Smit, the leading painter, and sculptor of iconic Cape Malay women will present a series of new works, inspired by the digital age and manipulation of the image.

Celebrated for his skillfully oil-painted and sculpted portraits of female subjects, his work took on a new direction when he moved to the Cape in 2009. This exhibition marks ten years of Smit starting a whole new iconography while exploring abstract qualities in painting and sculpting applications.

Using meticulous techniques Smit has created a unique series of multimedia paintings that, at first glance, look like painterly works of art, but on close inspection, are a combination of silkscreen and layering of different or repeated imagery. The result is a series of works that signifies a dramatic new departure for the artist.

The whole idea behind Manipulated Image is how the digital age and technology has influenced artists and their processes. Experimentation forms a big part of the imagery where Smit uses silk screening as part of his painting process, creating a cross over between the two mediums.

Recent solo exhibitions include Destructure with Everard Read, London; Divide, with ARTLIFE, Los Angeles, and Obscura with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami. Smit’s sculpture Morphous has been publicly installed in Union Square, New York, and is currently on display at the Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey, USA.

Lionel Smit was born in Pretoria in 1982. As the son of a South African sculptor, Anton Smit, he was never formally trained, besides attending the Pro Arte High School. Smit rose to prominence for his iconic portrayals of the Cape Malay women after moving to Cape Town in 2009 and arranging his first solo exhibition based around this theme titled Residue at Grande Provence, Franschhoek. One of his monumental portraits was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2013 receiving the Visitor’s Choice Award. His work is in several collections including that of Delaire Graff Estate, as well as the private collections of the Didrichsen Art Museum, Ellerman House, Laurence Graff, and Louis Norval.

Video:
Jasper Bailey
Kent Stützner

Sponsors:
MUTI Gin
Stuttaford Van Lines

DIVIDE exhibition by Lionel Smit - Presented by ARTLIFE, Los Angeles

Solo exhibition by Lionel Smit Presented by Art|Life Gallery 28 September – 28 October 2018

Lionel Smit, in collaboration with Artlife, West Hollywood presents the solo exhibition DIVIDE. DIVIDE is Lionel Smit’s first solo show on the West Coast of USA and includes some of his latest pieces from his Cape Town based studio. A selection of work will also be travelling from his solo exhibition OBSCURA, that was recently held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami.

Divide forms part of Smit’s ongoing conversation about identity, drawing from the racial diversity in South Africa and probing how we are shaped–and placed–by our identity. Smit homes in on an ethnic group with a rich, complex and often fraught history: the Cape Malay people of Cape Town. The exhibition runs from 27 September to 28 October 2018 showcasing his paintings, sculpture and silkscreens.  

Solo Exhibition STATE by Lionel Smit presented by Everard Read

Lionel Smit, in collaboration with Everard Read Johannesburg, presents the solo exhibition STATE. This new body of work explores the idea of the different emotional states we find ourselves in and how surroundings influence that state of mind.

Through adding video works, Smit has created an environment where he has influenced the exhibition space, allowing him to direct the viewers’ state. This has a profound impact on how we experience the work. Various works explore the female figure as portrait, with the continuation of his ideas on the construction of identity with layers of paint and silkscreen fabricating the fragmentation of the subject.

The exhibition runs from 24 August to 27 September 2017 following a successful show in London, showcasing monumental portraiture, sculpture, silkscreens and multimedia video installations.

Getting to know celebrated South African artist, Lionel Smit

Interviewer: What can we expect from the show?

Lionel: Well the show is going to be multidisciplinary which means I have a whole combination of works. I have prints and sculpture and painting instead of just having paintings.

Interviewer: Tell me about the preparation that goes into that.

Lionel: I have different parts in my studio, so I have a printing studio, I have a painting studio, and a sculpting studio. Then I have teams that work together with me, helping me to produce the works. I make everything myself but I need people to help coordinate. Specifically, in relation to the sculpture, it’s a process of welding things.

Interviewer: Tell me about being an artist in South Africa.

Lionel: It’s amazing being an artist in South Africa just because we have such raw talent and a lot of developing talent. The artworld is a growing discovery that the country is evolving to accept as the norm with the Joburg Art Fair has been running for years now and compared to places like London it’s a very saturated market. There are a lot of art and art fairs and it is the norm so I think in South Africa it’s nice to know that there are a growing community and a growing awareness of art.

Interviewer: Do you think South Africans appreciate art the same way as other cities do?

Lionel: I think there’s a big art community in South Africa and I’m sure that community appreciates art as any other. I think people appreciate work in the same way and on the same level as other countries.

Lionel talks about his first sculpture

Interviewer: At what point in your life did you become really passionate about these two forms of expression?

Lionel: Well I grew up with sculpture because my father is a sculptor and that’s something I’ve been surrounded with since I grew up since I was small and basically it’s something that just evolved. It rubbed off on me and I started doing it, particularly sculpture, and then, later on, I did painting and that became something that I was really interested in because it wasn’t something that I was confronted with every day. It was a new discovery for me to do painting. It just happened; I didn’t really decide to do it.

Interviewer: You said you grew up around sculpture, do you remember the first sculpture you ever made?

Lionel: One of the first ones was a small little face that I hollowed out and I hung it on the wall. For some reason, I always wanted to hang things, and I like painting so I actually made a sculpture that you could hang on the wall. Later on funny enough I made variations of that first piece I made but just in large form and bronzes.

Interviewer: Do you still have it?

Lionel: Actually my cousin has it.

Interviewer: You’ve become really known for depicting women in your art, especially Cape Malay women. Why did you decide to look at the women and explore women through art?

Lionel: Well basically I moved down from Pretoria to Cape Town, I used to paint people from my environment and when I moved down here I started painting my surroundings. That ended up being Cape Malay and because they had this universal idea about them and they’re not really black, they’re not white. They’re this new person created through genetics and I think that was something really interesting and from there just plainly painting people in my surroundings. I took that idea and it became a bigger broader idea of ‘who are we’ and where do we come from genetically and race-wise? It intrigued me, the whole idea of someone being African, European, and Malaysian in one. The concept started evolving into different things.

Interviewer: What did you learn about these women while you were depicting them?

Lionel: I think the interesting thing about these women and the main idea about the women is a little bit mysterious why I only mostly do paint women is because I think that my technique lends itself to having this fragile idea of female combined with this very abstract strong masculine painterly effect. It really works well together and something I want to communicate the whole idea of two pools almost interacting with each other in the paintings. Similar to the sculptures there’s always this communication between the two. The idea of the sculpture being like paint drips pouring down and the bronze sculptures mimic the paintings.