Lucien Smith

Pie painting

2012

Lucien Smith, referred to as an art world Wunderkind by the New York Times in 2013, received a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art in 2011. Smith, who is based in New York, has widely exhibited in group and solo shows in the United States and abroad, including Skarstedt Gallery, Salon 94, OHWOW Gallery, Marianne Boesky Gallery, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans and the American Academy in Rome. A Simple Twist of Fate is one of Smith’s acclaimed Rain paintings, created during the year Smith spent living and working in Hudson, New York. In this series of paintings, he applies paint to an unprimed canvas using a fire extinguisher, resulting in an atmospheric mist of yellow and blue paint droplets that echoes the pattern of rainfall and brings to mind the Impressionist artists' fascination with the interaction of rain and light. According to Smith, “The Rain paintings in his head serve as backdrops for situations between people and/or objects, very much like backdrops in a play. They become activated when something is placed in front of them; only then do their scale and size come into effect.”