by Dr. Barbara Aust-Wegemund, Art Historian

A spread of poetic-surreal artworks surrounds the Red Dot Fair Miami (December 2-7, 2014) with works by Joshua Smith. Inundated with visual metaphors and symbolic icons in oil on canvas, his artwork appears in a tactile interplay of figuratives elements, graphic lines in front of foggy spaces, illuminating colors in impressionistic landscapes.

In the heart of Midtown Miami Wynwood Art District Red Dot Fair Miami showcases innovative new art in an elegant, gallery-style exhibition space. The juried, contemporary art fair in the heart of Midtown Miami is featuring an international slate of artists and galleries. Wynwood Art District is the home to more than fifty galleries, five museums, seven art complexes and many art fairs and studios. Global art lovers enjoy discovering this district and named it one of most stylish neighbourhoods in the world. Red Dot Art Fair Miami is providing an intimate look at some of the most important work at the forefront of the international contemporary art movement.


Some of this year’s highlights includes the artworks by Joshua Smith. On focus are his recent oil on canvas series which invites art lovers at Collectors’ Preview to discuss about it. 

Claude Monet, father of French Impressionism, once so famously said, “Light is the principal person in the picture.” However, if you view Joshua Smith’s paintings, then you see that he strove over and over again to encapsulate the way that light danced over the Viaduct in his works “The Muse” and “Forgiveness” or the water reflections in “The Golden State” as well as all the different atmospheres and weathers in his series.

A lifelong fasciation with painting shapes the work of Joshua Smith, who gratuated at the Hartford Art School, University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT in Painting (2002-2004 MFA) and holds a BFA at Laguna College of Art and Design, LCAD Laguna Beach, CA (1996-2000).

The US American master of oil painting Joshua Smith translates his imagination on to canvas. Through the medium of painting, Smith developed his own language which speaks of fantasy and nature, blending surrealism into the physical world, with playful imagery and fragments of playful subject matters. His paintings on canvas often presents landscapes with chairs, birds, butterflys and clouds, an imaginaire world where beings are either dreaming or existing in a parallel world, a virtual universe in which dreams and reality fuse.

Amoungst his countless art exhibitions it should mentioned, that his artworks were exhibited in solo shows at Christopher Morgan Galleries (Palm Desert and Laguna Beach, CA), Contemporary Fine Arts (La Jolla, CA), The Artist Project Toronto Exhibition Place (Toronto, ON), Grand Bohemian Gallery (Asheville, NC), Art Expo Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Resort, Chuck Jones Gallery (San Diego, CA) and group shows at American Center for the Arts in Paris (France), Société Nationale des Beaux Arts Carousel du Louvre, Paris (France), among others.

Joshua Smith was awarded with the Fine Art Medal for the painting "The Hiding Place" at European Société of Arts Science and Lettres Paris (2012) and the SOLO Best of Show "painting" at Art Expo New York (2007). He was involved in numerous projects and lecturing as Art Instructor at The Guilford Handcraft Center, Art Professor at The Hartford Art School and Exhibition Curator at Nathan J Gallery.

Joshua Smith reminisces the childhood experiences, where we fantasize our surroundings, where the sky is the limit. In this sense Smith’s work is like a journey through some unknown metaphysical reality, in belief of the omnipotence of the (day) dream. As if to emphasize the landscapes, birds and butterflys extreme sensitivity, the colors are overlaying like powder. These colors remain in delicate, nuanced and atmospheric style. The paintings’ dense, fragile surfaces and areas of multichromatic richness recall to ancient wall frescos. Take your seat. Welcome the muse.

LOCATION

Joshua Smith at RED DOT Miami – Booth No. E 116
Red Dot Miami 2014
Wynwood Arts District
3111 NE 1stt Avenue at NE 31st Street
Miami, Fl 33137
info@reddotfair.com
www.reddotfair.com

OPENING  PARTY
Tuesday, December 2: 6pm - 10pm
VIP Preview: Access for VIP Cardholders & Press

FAIR  HOURS
Wednesday, December 3:    11am - 5pm
Thursday, December 4:        11am - 8pm
Friday, December 5:             11am - 8pm
Saturday, December 6:       11am - 8pm
Sunday, December 7:          11am - 6pm

General Admissions:
Week Pass: $25
Day Pass: $15

CONTACT ARTIST
Studio Joshua Smith
joshuasmithart@sbcglobal.net
www.joshuasmithfineart.com

CONTACT AUTHOR
Source/ Copyrights
Dr. Barbara Aust-Wegemund
info@arthistoryconsulting.de
www.arthistoryconsulting.de

About the Author:

Dr. Barbara Aust-Wegemund, born in Zurich/ Switzerland, is an Art Historian and Managing Director at Art History Consulting (AHC) based in Hamburg. She studied Art History at Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel (Germany), University for Foreigners Perugia (Italy) and London Guildhall University (UK).

In 2002 she earned her PhD from University of Kiel with a Dissertation on Modern Sculpture: “Sources of Inspiration.The Meaning of Nature in Henry Moore´s Late Work.” Barbara is an art historian and critic who has written widely on modern and contemporary art. Her essays have been featured in monographs, exhibition catalogues, e-zines, journals and the online editorial department of Goethe Institute Inc.