Art Exhibitions

13 May 2020

In his latest body of work, Lionel Smit is engaging with the tactility of the painterly medium and its ability to reference the texture and elasticity of human skin.

 

This exhibition is, above all, an appeal to the tactile nature of art and its production. His work speaks strongly against the isolation that many humans are experiencing right now, and it is a balm against the feelings of loss and separation that permeate our present condition.

 

His work is an urgent reminder of our desire to touch, and one cannot look at his paintings without recognising that our ability to feel is as much an emotional response as it is a tactile experience. As John Keats reminds us, “touch has a memory”. And it is exactly this memory that Smit is calling to the fore – the memory of touching and tracing a face.

 

Dr Ernst van der Wal

 

(Senior Lecturer: Visual Arts, Stellenbosch University)

EVERARD READ CAPE TOWN

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