See Painter Emily Mae Smith’s Delightful Pop Symbolist Art From Her First Show at Perrotin Tokyo

“Emily Mae Smith: Avalon” at Perrotin,
Tokyo
On view through November 9, 2019

What the Gallery Says: In the gallery’s press
release, poet and Nation art critic Barry Schwabsky
writes, “Smith has evidently been looking as long as she’s been
painting: her references encompass a big chunk of the history of
Western painting, including often-overlooked episodes like
nineteenth-century Symbolism, as well as a vast swath of the
popular or commercial arts, from Art Nouveau graphics through
Disney animation to the psychedelic posters of the Summer of Love.
Not surprisingly, Smith has observed that almost all this art was
made by men for the delectation of other men. Her determination, in
accordance with the times, was to put her own perceptions and
experience as a woman into the picture—and to have fun doing
it.”

Why It’s Worth a Look: In the spunky,
surreal world of Brooklyn-based painter Emily Mae Smith, an
anthropomorphized broom is the central character—based on the
dancing brooms from Disney’s Fantasia—she wears a
bristled skirt with an attenuated, very phallic torso. In one
painting, titled Gleaner Odalisque, the
object-person lounges seductively a la the Ingres original,
complete with a pleated blue curtain and silky pillows. Other
tableaux feature almost cartoonish objects—the clasp of overalls; a
tongue making for a circular saw, captured mid-lick; and a
suggestive snake wrapped around an ominous hourglass laden with
ripe fruit, painted in detailed, clean strokes.

What It Looks Like:

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