Jesse Leroy Smith
Family is a central theme of my work, an ever-evolving set of relationships in which emotion, desire and identity are tangible, fluid and vivid. I collate scrapbooks in which friends, family and heroes montage with film stills, costume and architecture alongside creatures and landscapes from my travels. They include contributions from my children and drawings form religious iconography and ancient art. These collections of collaged, dreamlike, juxtaposed memories most often form the basis of my drawings and paintings.
Painting for me can be both refined and raw, quiet and raucous. It connects personal experiences with the impact of art history. The spontaneous potential of paint, its sensuality and sense of touch are ideal ways to trick my consciousness. Collaboration, curating, travelling and pseudonym artists have all allowed film, installation, performance and print making to influence my paintings.
Most recently these veer between either immersive frieze’s that interact with site specific venues to solitary portraits called ‘Descendants’. I choose these individuals as their life experiences embody themes around trauma, vulnerability and solace. During their painting they often adopt other personas, other friends, family or imagined characters. As a series they form a collective portrait based on the legacies we resist or embrace.
Biography
Jesse Leroy Smith (b.1966, London) Studied at the Royal Academy Schools, (89-92). His work is particularly shaped by travels in Greece. Recent exhibitions there being ‘The alchemy of encounters’ at Cycladic Arts, Paros, ’Wanderlust’, Melas Mansion, Athens and ‘All Aboard’ at Athens Airport. 25- 2025
He exhibited a large body of paintings for ‘Paradise’ at Velarde Gallery, Devon, 24 and created a ‘Prey’ a 12 x 3m frieze at Fabrica Brighton, 24 with a banquet for 100 people and created ‘The Pollinators’, an immersive painting installation in a monolithic disused courtroom in Bristol, 22.
He also curates art projects that bring together diverse artists, performers and communities to reimagine abandoned venues. ‘Unstable Monuments’ Bristol and ‘Rapture’ Brighton promoted a wealth of emerging talent alongside artists with international reputations. He leads a mentoring programme at Newlyn School of Art, Cornwall and he has a studio there and in Brighton where he lives.
