Antidote to Noise
Peter Frank: Discourse on Margaret-Anne Smith on the occasion of Antidote to Noise
Margaret-Anne Smith’s work follows logically out of minimalism, but note that it follows out of minimalism, not into it, or in it. Smith’s work begins with form and elaborates upon that, and does so, particularly in her most recent work, in mathematical terms, specifically geometry and trigonometry… Linear and planar relationships in the most recent work are the generating concepts.
The work immediately preceding, … as can be seen in the imagery, is more, well, you might call it fractal in that regard, but it is more complex and dependent on irregular natural forms like stones. But in her most recent work Smith does away with references to the natural world and … posits that the natural world includes the pure, the theoretical and the hidden.
In a sense, Smith is working with the grid, ….most notably the recent work, does so most clearly… not in a direct way, not with the vertical horizontal coordinates on a single plane, but with a more complex concept of the grid, where the grid is a mapping field for point and line relationships, point and line and plane relationships. Her work in this regard harks back not to minimalism but to classic modernist geometric art, the work of Malevich, Kandinsky, Mondrian, amplified by a conscious employment of mathematical relationships.
There is a great sensuosity to the work, but it resides in the work [itself], less in the material. The earliest work Smith displays in the show has that sensuousness because it is referencing the biological and geological qualities of the natural world. But the most recent work depends on theoretical and abstract and ideal aspects of natural occurrence rather than the everyday, … mundane aspects of natural formation.
Peter Frank
March 08, 2020