10 Questions with Ko Smith

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Ko Smith now lives in Brooklyn, New York. His multimedia works embrace the complexity of personal histories and examine the narratives and psychological habits that have brought us to our present juncture. Smith's work has been presented and exhibited at NYC venues, including Con Artist, ArtHelix, the Kentler International Drawing Space, numerous art fairs in NY and Florida, and international residencies in France and Italy.

www.kosmith.com | @kosmithstudio

ARTIST STATEMENT

Ko Smith’s artwork explores the construction of identity and nationhood, language, and narrative. Working primarily in oil painting, he uses art as a lens to examine our cultural behaviors and perception of the world. His practice also crosses disciplines, including conceptually based sculpture and installation. It carries influences from one artistic technique to another as he explores our contemporary context through his artistic lens.
Smith has been a practicing Artist for 15 years. Throughout his career, the themes uniting his projects involve personal and collective memories’ interaction with daily experience to shape our cumulative understanding of the moment. In his work, figures emerge from abstracted settings, responding to the task of interpreting events both major and quotidian. Smith places his works into a “Memory Palace” – a way of placing each painting or drawing into a narrative that progresses as his life unfolds. Engaging with the world with the assumption of faulty perception, he draws connections between events and ideas, occasionally utilizing mnemonic devices to give a thematic structure to the work. This plays out in each piece with imagery that is at the same time personal, specific, vague, and open to interpretation with the ultimate goal to immerse the viewer.

Partisan (Fortresses of Tautology) © Ko Smith

INTERVIEW

First of all, introduce yourself to our readers. Who you are and how did you start experimenting with images?

I've been lucky enough to have people in my life who did and did not do two specific things. Firstly, no one discouraged my art-making as a child or ever told me that what I was doing wasn't good enough. That came later.
Secondly, my family and friends have always been accepting of my being an artist. When I say accepting, I do not mean encouraging. I also do not mean discouraging. Most of my family is from a lower-middle-class background– so en masse, I don't think they concerned themselves too much with what my being an artist means.
These two advantages converge in one figure: my Mother. She had been a talented graphic designer and illustrator through the eighties to the 2010s. Her studio was a wonderland for me. As I continued showing interest in art, she would always set aside space and supplies for me to encourage me and avoid getting my clumsy little hands all over her professional work. In this sense, image-making and material manipulation developed with my Mother's encouragement and acceptance of the rest of my family and friends.

How would you define yourself as an artist?

This question can be a debilitating rabbit hole, so I generally define my artistry according to what I make, which most people will be interacting with. My being a painter is as much about my relationship to the materials I use, as it is about my relationship to and with other people. Self-definition is never an easy or comfortable task because of all that happens "behind the curtain", as it were, but in the end, I guess I'm comfortable enough telling people I'm a painter.

Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What is your artistic routine when working?

I generally work in series, on multiple paintings at a time, always paying close attention to what they want to do. This way, each body of work serves as a vignette showcasing the development and reduction of technique from image to image. I approach and activate each work in its own moment, then let it rest. Of course, the weight of importance between activation and rest varies, as breakthroughs can happen in each state as the image is being formed. I generally listen to something as I work, mostly audiobooks, but often podcasts or music. And I always, always light a stick of cedarwood incense before I begin.

How much planning goes into each artwork?

Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. I regard planning as a matter of logistics: working to ensure each element– concept, materials, technique, timeframe– can come together at the right moment. When I approach a new work, and these elements manage to come together, it feels like fucking magic.

In your art, you touch on important themes, such as personal and collective memory, identity and nationhood, language, and narrative. What do you hope that the public takes away from your work?

This is largely out of my control, and I respect my viewers enough not to be overly didactic. That is to say, I respect that individuals will have a unique experience with my work– and ultimately, that experience will be their takeaway. Yes, I do my best to communicate, to combine idea, material, and intention into something that may open an experience of "art" to the viewer. If a viewer understands what I'm "trying to say" then, in a sense, I'm happy. In another sense, I embrace that the work must have a life of its own, apart from my internal narrative. My work is not about telling a straight story– it is about planting the seeds of an idea, mood or sensibility, and hoping it will grow in the perspective of the viewer.

Partisan (Puritanical Fervor) © Ko Smith

Partisan (Identitarian Conflict) © Ko Smith

Why do you use this visual language? And how has it evolved over the years?

I find the history of painting interesting in and of itself, and I tend to think in images that lend themselves to painting. Also, I love the materiality, flexibility, and smell of oil paints. My visual language is in service of the motivating idea behind the body of work, most times.
However, that relationship is fundamentally subjective as it relies on aesthetic decisions that are both logical and sensuous. Different works and different bodies of work have meandered into and out of these frameworks over the years. It is not so much that I use a certain visual language, but that a visual language develops itself in the considering, deciding, feeling, and making of art.

Do you have any artists or role models that influence and inspire your work?

Gerhard Richter, Adrian Piper, Mark Tansey, and Umberto Eco have had a continuing influence on the undercurrents of my artistic decision-making and occasionally in the forefront of my mind. More recently, I haven't been able to stop looking at the work of Jennifer Packer, and Anne Imhof's recent show at Palais de Tokyo is going to stay with me for a while, I think.

Partisan (Hegemony of the Transgressed) © Ko Smith

Do you find that the shift to digital exhibitions and art fairs has helped you promote your work?

Nominally. I appreciate this feature, thanks.

What do you think about the art community and market?

What is the price of admission, what is the criteria of acceptance, and why? Also, are these even the right questions to be asking?

Finally, any projects you are looking forward to for this year?

I just moved to Paris on a temporary basis, and am really looking forward to going to shows this year. I have a residency in the Champagne region for the month of September, where I plan to continue my "Partisan" series and develop a new technique of portraiture based on a number of studio experiments in color and texture I've been doing.

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