Paul anthony smith biography
Paul Anthony Smith: Standing In
The act of “shooting” and sharing photographs has often been colonial in both history and nature, capturing subjects for our visual enjoyment, archive, and collection. Jamaica-born, New York-based artist Paul Anthony Smith makes photo-based works that push back against the medium’s inherently predatory dimensions while simultaneously introducing a network of added layers to navigate. He does so by employing his previous training in ceramics to disturb and modify the pictorial surface, using a series of sculptural picks to simultaneously dismantle the image and thicken its meaning. This ritualistic process of what Smith calls “picotage” is performed upon diary-like photos of people, places, and events he has encountered upon his travels through the Caribbean and UK – mixing vibrant scenes of carnivals and sober images of funerals with casual views of friends and family gathering. As he subsequently rakes these photos with hundreds of picked edges, cre Paul Anthony Smith, Eye Fi Di Tropics, Jamaica, 2024!