ALEXANDRIA SMITH

The works in Stirrings of a Polymorphous Bloom envision cosmic environments inhabited by figures influx. Smith’s practice is grounded in her exploratory drawings, represented in Hong Kong by workson paper housed in custom frames. From these, she develops boldly colored assemblage paintingsthat incorporate shapes made from painted wood and 3D-printed elements that rise from theirsurfaces and extend beyond their frames.

Smith’s new works focus on symbols of genesis, light, and growth, inspired by her interests inautobiography, fiction, and collective memory. Variously colored and ambiguously gendered, thesehybrid figures emphasize features such as eyes, limbs, nipples, kneecaps, and nails. They stretch,divide, and multiply, embodying Smith’s multifaceted allegories of physical, spiritual, and emotionalgrowth.

Spanning fifteen feet over three panels, Seers like me (2022) is Smith’s largest work to date, conceivedin conversation with Akwaeke Emezi’s work of flash fiction published in Gagosian Quarterly inresponse to a painting by Smith. Here, nested shapes that may be read as a single figure or threeinterconnected ones emerge from the earth, gazing upward at a row of arched portals and beadedcurtains that act as theatrical elements to frame the scene. Further developing the artist’s polymorphic themes, a glorious rapture (2023) features eyes on an arched frame painted in a green wood-grainpattern. At the composition’s center is a flame rendered in relief, witnessed by two floating profilesthat Smith calls “ancestor heads.”

Painted on an arched support, The Wayfinders (2023) represents two nearly identical green andyellow figures in a roughly symmetrical landscape with soil that may appear barren, but whichcontains deep roots. The pair look at a column of floating disks in the composition’s center thatcontain brightly colored flames. The underwater realm of Heft of the Lumens (2023) is inhabited bytwo armless figures with multiple legs who share a single eye in a sign of shared consciousness andpurpose.

The softness of your sweet (2023) features a flower with sculpted petals—a symbol of beauty found inunexpected places—and the profile of a human face that grows from an island; behind it are fierybeams of light that connect other islands with portal-like holes. Starchile in the wild (2023) representsa new experimental direction for Smith. Incorporating sand and spray-painting, the painting featuresa figure walking through a mysterious, primordial environment; oriented by the North Star, they arefollowed by three ancestor heads, a symbol of individual initiative and collective change.