For the 2009 NADA Art Fair, Western Exhibitions will dedicate a solo booth to dizzying new paintings by Geoffrey Todd Smith.

Smith's large paintings on panel continue his concerns with visually stunning optical effects, adding surface concerns to his acute attention to pattern, repetition, color and detail. By turning to painting, he is expanding the formal conversation of his signature gouache and gel pens-- the new works, oil and acrylic paint, are visceral, tough and dazzling. His pallette for these paintings consists mainly of metallic hues reverberating in a horror vaccui buzz over a field of black shapes. Geoffrey explores inventive modes of abstraction that intersect at times with design calling attention to the influence that each has had on our collective viewing/seeing habits. However, the handmade quality of these works enforces an engagement with the image that moves beyond technologically produced designs. In addition to the formal issues, these abstract works seek to capture the shimmering energy and rythm of the city night and evoke the twinkling lights and shadowy voids that inhabit the darkness.

Prior to these paintings, Smith has worked exclusively on paper for the past few years, to great interest and acclaim, within and outside Chicago. Chicago Magazine called him one of the "rising stars we should be collecting now", he has been interviewed on FecalFace.com, featured on Cool Hunting, and his work is in the collections of Hallmark Inc. in Kansas City and the Jager Collection in Amsterdam. To some, his drawings appear to be digital; Smith's works are handmade. He uses a template to draw his grid of circles, but everything after this is done freehand. He paints the grid of circles with gouache straight from the tube and draws by hand the dense ziz-zags and patterns, using archival ink gel pens. He does not mix any colors - the color mixing in these works happens optically as his vibrant delicate lines mash with the gouache underpainting.

We will also have new works available, in our flatfile, by Dan Attoe, Eric Lebofsky, Miller & Shellabarger, Dutes Miller, Deb Sokolow and Mark Wagner.