Carl Smith Portrait Paintings

Carl Smith is originally from Santa Fe, New Mexico and studied art at Cooper Union in New York. He has been living in Berlin, Germany since 2001. Smith is particularly interested in the endless possibilities of book design, inspiring a collection of fine art book spines by the artist. "I am especially intrigued by the appearance of books when they are together in large, disorderly groups where all their different colors and styles somehow find a certain harmony. In many of my pieces I have sought to draw attention to this dynamic and experiment with the visual possibilities of stacking and leaning the books on each other like some kind of abstracted building block. In short, as a visual artist who works primarily with collage, I find books to be endlessly inspiring. They are so ordinary, yet they can be so sublime." Smith's graphic surreal works have been exhibited and collected in Germany, Norway, England and the United States.