Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino is pleased to present the new series Fragmented Landscapes by Melanie Smith (b. 1965, England). The series is a culmination of extensive research on Texas history and culture through resources such as the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. The imagery in her paintings is appropriated directly from works by Frank Reaugh, Frederic Remington, and Charles Russell, key figures in representing the Texas landscape, the American West, ranching, and Native American culture in the early 20th century. Smith has reinterpreted the original works through the lenses of abstraction and minimalism.
Melanie Smith: Fragmented Landscapes
August 29 - November 19, 2020
Melanie Smith: Fragmented Landscapes
About the Series
“Throughout my work, I have been interested in making something new out of the past. It means making a new surface, from the copy, of something that did exist, but my versions of the present are disjointed and misaligned, creating gaps in that history or past."
- Melanie Smith
Fragmented Landscape 15, 2020
Pigment on wood, 35 3/8 x 29 1/2 in.
Fragmented Landscape 20, 2020
Pigment on wood, 35 3/8 x 29 1/2 in.
Fragmented Landscape 22, 2020.
Pigment on wood, 35 3/8 x 29 1/2 in.
Fragmented Landscape 16, 2020
Pigment on wood, 35 3/8 x 29 1/2 in.
Fragmented Landscape 17, 2020
Pigment on wood, 35 3/8 x 29 1/2 in.
Fragmented Landscape 14, 2020
Pigment on wood, 35 3/8 x 29 1/2 in.
Fragmented Landscape 19, 2020
Pigment on wood, 35 3/8 x 29 1/2 in.
Fragmented Landscape 18, 2020
Pigment on wood, 35 3/8 x 29 1/2 in.
Fragmented Landscape 21, 2020
Pigment on wood, 35 3/8 x 29 1/2 in.
Fragmented Landscape 7, 2020
Pigment on wood, 23 9/16 x 35 3/8 in.
Fragmented Landscape 13, 2020
Pigment on wood, 14 15/16 x 30 11/16 in.
Fragmented Landscape 5, 2020
Pigment on wood, 23 9/16 x 35 3/8 in.
Fragmented Landscape 6, 2020
Pigment on wood, 23 9/16 x 35 3/8 in.
Fragmented Landscape 4, 2020
Pigment on wood, 23 9/16 x 35 3/8 in.
Fragmented Landscape 3, 2020
Pigment on wood, 23 9/16 x 35 3/8 in.
Fragmented Landscape 2, 2020
Pigment on wood, 14 15/16 x 30 11/16 in.
Fragmented Landscape 10, 2020
Pigment on wood, 14 15/16 x 13 3/8 in.
Fragmented Landscape 8, 2020
Pigment on wood, 14 15/16 x 13 3/8 in.
Fragmented Landscape 9, 2020
Pigment on wood, 14 15/16 x 30 11/16 in.
Fragmented Landscape 11, 2020
Pigment on wood, 14 15/16 x 30 11/16 in.
Fragmented Landscape 12, 2020
Pigment on wood, 14 15/16 x 30 11/16 in.
Fragmented Landscape 1 [diptych, left], 2020
Pigment on wood, 14 15/16 x 61 3/8 in.
Fragmented Landscape 1 [diptych, right], 2020
Pigment on wood, 14 15/16 x 61 3/8 in.
"They are fragments of the original paintings, where the background or foreground is missing, as if the landscape has somehow become dislodged."
- Melanie Smith
"Leaving out the sky, or not painting in the foreground, leaves the subject without its original context, as if there was a deliberate lapse or unfinished element that might at some point be continued. The works are to be considered as parts of incomplete classifications, like a jigsaw puzzle of disjointed fragments and histories affixed to an empty surface."
- Melanie Smith