“A Mountain of Skulls and Not One I Recognize”by Guy Richards Smit

@Charlie James Gallery, China Town, Los Angeles
February 27 – April 9, 2016

First solo show for New York-based artist Guy Richards Smit. No red nose, no diamonds, no smile on Smit’s skulls like did Damien Hirst. Those are “regular” skulls painted with water color .. “Regular” this is exactly where Smit’s artwork starts to be interesting. He painted a skull as he would have painted the portrait of the person to whom it belongs, with the intention to describe, to give a soul to see, like a Dutch portraitist. And he adds those funny words “King maker”, “Hard Worker” etc… to enhance the design with the gouache and to complement what he couldn’t show, obviously because of the absence of flesh, of glaze. 

Second series shown at Charlie James is the very interesting Real-Fake New York Times large pages painted with gouache, with headlines, images as if it was a copy. It is not, every content is fake and full of humor.

Excellent hilarious moment at the gallery.