Viewing Thursday, February 7 through May 5, 2019, “Emily Mae Smith / MATRIX 181†features experimental art, performance art and explore new developments in painting. Marking the first MATRIX show since 2013 at the Wadsworth Art Museum in Hartford, Connecticut to feature an artist who is solely a painter, Smith engages with a “The Lady of Shalott†(c. 1888–1905) by William Holman Hunt from the museum’s permanent collection.
Artist Smith was chosen by Artsy as 1 of 20 female artists pushing figurative painting forward. With a nod to distinct painting movements from the history of art, such as Symbolism, Surrealism and Pop art, she creates lively compositions that offer sly social and political commentary.
Teeming with symbols, Hunt’s “The Lady of Shalott†is the catalyst for which Smith provides a feminist a new recreation of the narrative. She had a postcard of the painting since she was a teenager. It became the perfect source to address the outdated psychology of female oppression, male authority and implied violence still pertinent today for this project. In addition, this exhibition is her first solo museum show in the US, seven paintings has been selected by Smith, dated 2015 to 2018, that relate to “The Lady of Shalott†and has created three new paintings, dated 2019, directly inspired by Hunt’s masterwork.
According to Patricia Hickson, the Wadsworth’s Emily Hall Tremaine Curator of Contemporary Art, “Emily Mae Smith offers a raucous and empowering retelling of The Lady of Shalott, leading with her eccentric broomstick avatar along with her usual toolbox of gendered symbols. She employs a refreshing, satirical approach to social commentary.”
Smith’s lexicon of signs and symbols begins with her avatar, inspired by the broomstick figure from Disney’s Fantasia (1940). Simultaneously referring to a painter’s brush, a domestic tool associated with women’s work, and the phallus, the figure continually transforms across Smith’s body of work.
    “The first broom I put in a painting was…a way for me to paint an object, figure, female, and phallus all at the same time. I thought it was funny and an ideal vehicle,” said Smith. “The ideas for my broom figure have changed and expanded since then; it has been molded to my painting needs. You can say more difficult things with a character.” Smith’s depiction of the female body is all visual wit and dark humor. By adopting a variety of guises, the broom and other symbols speak to contemporary subjects, including gender, sexuality, capitalism and violence.
About
Born in 1979 in Austin Texas, Emily Mae Smith received her M.F.A. in Visual Art from Columbia University, New York in 2006 and her B. F. A. in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin. Recent solo and dual exhibitions include: Emily Mae Smith, Le Consortium, Lyon, France (2018-19); A Strange Relative, Perrotin, New York, NY (2018); The Sphinx or The Caress, Simone Subal Gallery, New York, NY (2017); Tesla Girls, Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium (2016); Honest Espionage, Mary Mary, Glasgow, Scotland, UK (2016); Medusa, Laurel Gitlen, New York, NY (2015).
    Select group exhibitions include Summer, curated by Ugo Rondinone, Peter Freeman Inc., New York, NY (2018);Pine Barrens, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, NY (2018); Pharmacy for Idiots, Rob Tufnell and Tanya Leighton, Köln, Germany (2017); Women to the Front, Works from the Miller Meigs Collection, Lumber Room, Portland, OR (2017); Le Quatrième Sexe, curated by Marie Maertens, Le Coeur, Paris, France (2017); Scarlet Street, Lucien Terras. New York, NY (2016); Me, Myself, I, China Art Objects Galleries, Los Angeles, CA (2016); Surrreal, König Galerie (St. Agnes), Berlin, Germany (2016); Untitled Body Parts, Simone Subal Gallery, New York, NY (2016). https://vimeo.com/306794629
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