Josh Smith: Emo Jungle

About Bob NickasJosh Smith

Josh Smith (b. 1976) is a New Yorkbased painter who also works with collage sculpture printmaking and artist books. He first became known in the early 2000s for a series of canvases depicting his own name a motif that allowed him to experiment freely with abstraction and figuration and the expressive possibilities of painting. His work has since given way to monochromes gestural abstractions and varied imagery including leaves fish skeletons sunsets and palm trees that the artist has explored in series. Smiths work engages in a celebratory and prolific project of experimentation and refinementupending the conventions of painting while simultaneously commanding a deep awareness of its history.A writer and curator based in New York Bob Nickas has organized more than 120 exhibitions since 1984. His books include Painting Abstraction: New Elements in Abstract Painting(2009) and four collections of his writings and interviews: Live Free or Die (2000) Theft Is Vision (2007) The Dept. of Corrections (2016) and Komplaint Dept. (2018). Most recently he has contributed essays to Vija Celmins (2018) and Brand New: Art & Commodity in the 1980s (2018). In 2013 Nickas organized Alan Uglow at David Zwirner New York for which he authored the exhibitions catalogue and contributed an essay to No Problem: Cologne/New York 19841989 (2015) published by David Zwirner Books.