Uitstalling Kube
Lionel Smit
Pendulum
July 1 - October 2, 2022
PENDULUM
“Our human world is like a swinging pendulum,” muses Lionel Smit. “There’s constant flux in our emotional and psychological inner states, even in our physical reality,” he explains with a contemplative smile. It is largely this [continuously evolving] examination of fluid, amorphous ‘states of being’ which drives the South African painter and sculptor.
In Pendulum, Smit’s central preoccupation has been to create visual conversations between classical post-Renaissance portraiture and modern expressionism. By doing so, the artist is able to examine and give life to these inner psychological states in new, dynamic ways.
Smit’s exhibition is primarily comprised of a series of dialogic diptychs reminiscent of photo negatives and their printed inverse. Heavy masculine impasto brushstrokes both challenge and complement the finer feminine forms and figures displayed. Similarly, in his bronze sculptures, we see the thick layering of textures counteracting the intrinsic female gentility of the subject matter. The pendulum swings between these opposing forces to find its own idiosyncratic visual balance.
Pendulum thus signifies an overt celebration of duality. An embracing of opposing forces. An ode to contradictions.
Unfamiliar State, 2022, oil on linen, 150 x 150cm
Restrain, 2022, oil on linen, 230 x 170cm
Unforeseen, 2021, bronze, edition of 8, 56 x 45 x 27cm
Unfamiliar State, 2022, oil on linen, 150 x 150cm
LIONEL SMIT
Lionel Smit is one of South Africa’s most prolific and exalted artists. His artistic diversity is pursued through a variety of mediums and he is best known for his contemporary portraiture. His art is defined by a deeply rooted symbiotic relationship between sculpture and painting. Today, each of Lionel Smit’s works offers us an entry point into the variety and richness that lies beneath every face we encounter in life, whether applied in bronze or paint. The blending of techniques across genres is a display of Smit’s work in multiple media, all bearing a visible and tangible overlap.
Lionel Smit was born in 1982 in Pretoria, South Africa. Smit’s work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, his painting Kholiswa has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London receiving the Viewer’s Choice Award. Collections including his works vary from Standard Chartered Bank to Laurence Graff Art Collection and his painting has been featured on the cover of Christie’s Auction Catalogue.
