LIONEL SMIT

(b.1982  Pretoria, South Africa )

South African artist Lionel Smit is best known for his contemporary portraiture executed through monumental canvases and sculptures. Perhaps more than anything else, Lionel Smit’s art is defined by a deeply rooted symbiotic relationship between sculpture and painting.

Each of Lionel Smit’s works offers us an entry point into the variety and richness that lies beneath every face we encounter in life, whether applied in bronze or in paint. The blending of techniques across genres is a display of Smit’s work in multiple media, all bearing visible overlap.

His paintings start with abstract lines and swaths of colour that establish a base for the subsequently overlaid image of a face or bust – in most cases posed by anonymous models from the Cape Malay community. For Smit, the Cape Malay woman epitomises hybrid identity within a South African context, and reflects the disintegrating construction of identity within our increasingly globalised world. His work is loaded with both historical and aesthetic precedent; clearly focused on the dialogue between the figurative and expressive abstract. Smit thus translates his own understanding of identity - drawing from images in his daily surrounds.

Smit’s subject matter is consistent. The people he paints or sculpts possess a particular quality that appeals to his visual sensitivity, but nothing more in the way of social influence. The sitter’s face acts, quite simply, as a vessel for Smit’s experimentation with colour, stroke and technique. In regards to bronze, Smit’s treatment of the medium reveals it to be especially well suited to the translation of his painterly activities into sculpture.

Smit’s bronzes are created using the lost wax casting method - one of the oldest known metal-forming techniques. Patinas commonly available to artists working in bronze include natural browns, blacks and greens. However, considering the importance of colour to Smit in his painting, he uses alternative methods that result in a unique fusion of intensely saturated patinas onto the bronze.

Brilliant streaks of blues and greens enrich the grooves of an ear, while the natural shadow of an eyelid is intensified by the deepening of rich black patinas. Combing his ability to manipulate the patination process and his focused enthusiasm for surface gradations - Smit’s avant-garde approach to the medium has allowed him to consistently push the envelope.

Smit continues his visual and tactile exploration of hybrid identity and its ever changing and emerging nature within South Africa's psycho-social landscape. While retaining all their austerity and peaceful aesthetic, Smit's figures remain highly charged with the emotive and gestural energy of his creative process.

Based in Somerset West, Cape Town, Smit’s process as an artist today remains adaptive, inventive, and physically engaging. Through this he has achieved success all over the world including sell-out exhibitions in London and Hong Kong. His work continues to inspire and captivate the minds of art novices and experts alike from Europe to America.

Smit's painting has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London where it received the Viewer’s Choice Award, as well as selected as the 'face' of the BP Portrait Award 2013 for all campaigns. In recent years he has also been honoured with a Ministerial Award from the Department of Culture for Visual Art. A highlight of his career has been the publication of one of his paintings on the cover of Christie’s Auction Catalogue. In June 2016, Smit, in collaboration with Cynthia-Reeves Gallery, installed a public art installation, Morphous, in Union Square, New York.

Over the past 10 years he has established a substantial international following with collectors ranging from the Standard Chartered Bank to Laurence Graff Art Collection at Delaire Graff Wine Estate.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023        Exposure, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2022        Interlude, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

                Pendulum, Uitstalling Gallery, Ghent, Belgium

               Interlude, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2021       Prelude, Everard Read, London, UK

               Discrepancies, Uitstalling Gallery, Ghent, Belgium

2020       Suspended, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa
               
               Verso, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

               Reposition, Uitstalling Gallery, Ghent, Belgium

2019       Destructure, Everard Read, London, United Kingdom

                Manipulated Image, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2018       Obscura, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, USA

                Divide, Art|Life Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2017       State, Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

                Emerge, M Contemporary, Sydney, Australia

                Faces of Identity, Everard Read, London, UK

                Premise, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2016       New Work, Rook & Raven Special Project Space at Armory Art Fair, New York City, USA

                Didrichsen Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland

                Morphous, installation in Union Square, New York, USA

                Echo, Cynthia-Reeves Gallery, Massachusetts, USA

               Trace, Rook & Raven, New York, USA

2015       FNB Joburg Art Fair, Everard Read booth, Johannesburg, South Africa

                Close/ Perspective, Everard Read Johannnesburg, South Africa

                Origins, Rook & Raven, London, UK

                Recurrence, M Contemporary, Sydney, Australia

                Obscura, Everard Read Cape Town, South Africa

                Accumulation of Disorder installation, Independent Art Projects, MASS MoCA Campus, USA

 2014      Morphous, CIRCA, Johannesburg, South Africa

                Cumulus, Rook & Raven, London, UK

                Contronym, Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong

 2013      Art Miami Fair, featured artist, Cynthia Reeves, Miami, USA
                IS Sculpture, IsArt, Tokara, Stellenbosch, South Africa

                Strarta Art Fair, Saatchi Gallery, Rook & Raven, London, UK

                Fragmented, Rook & Raven, London, UK
                100 Accumulation, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

                Wonder Works Exhibition, The Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong
2012       Compendium, 34FineArt, Cape Town, South Africa

                Strata, Rook and Raven, London, UK

2011       Surface, Artspace, Johannesburg,  South Africa

2010       Submerge, 34FineArt, Cape Town, South Africa

2009       Relate, Grande Provence, Franschhoek, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023      Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2022      Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

              Spring, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

             3D in 22: South African Contemporary Sculpture, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2020     Odyssey, online exhibition, Everard Read, UK & South Africa
             Staring Straight to the Future, online exhibition, Everard Read, UK & South Africa

                Masterpiece online, with Everard Read, London, UK

2019       Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

                Art Central Fair, with M Contemporary, Hong Kong

                CONTEXT Art Miami, with Everard Read, Miami, USA

2018       Winter, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

                Sydney Contemporary, with M Contemporary, Sydney, Australia

2017       Exposed, Helen Day Art Center, Vermont, USA

                Art Miami, Cynthia-Reeves Gallery, Miami, USA

                Art Central, M Contemporary, Hong Kong

2016       Opening Gallery Exhibition, Everard Read London, UK
                Investec Cape Town Art Fair, Everard Read booth, Cape Town, South Africa

2015       Bronze, Steel & Stone, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

                FNB Joburg Art Fair, Everard Read Gallery Booth, Johannesburg, South Africa

                Art Miami Fair Featured Artist, Cynthia Reeves Gallery, USA

2014       Summer Season, Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

               Art Taipei, Cat Street Gallery, Taiwan

               Fugitive Identity, Cynthia Reeves, USA

2013       BP Portrait Award Exhibition, Viewer’s Choice Award , National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
                Metal Work Public sculpture, Stellenbosch, South Africa

2012       Accumulation of Disorder, University of Stellenbosch Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
                Winter, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa
                Robert Bowman Gallery, India Art Fair, India
                Joburg Art Fair, Everard Read Gallery Booth, Johannesburg, South Africa

2011       34FineArt, ArtMonaco ‘11, Monaco
                MOMAC, Group Exhibition, Roberta Moore Fine Art, England

2010       Out of the Office, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Germany
                Cynthia Reeves Projects, Art Miami, USA
                We are not Witches, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
2009       F.A.C.E.T., Charity Auction, Christie’s, London, UK

AWARDS

2013       Visitors’ Choice Award, PB Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
               Ministerial Award from Department of Culture for Visual Art, Western Cape Government, South Africa

2009       Merit Award, Vuleka, Sanlam Art Competition, Cape Town, South Africa

2008       Achievement Award, Pro Arte School of Arts, Pretoria, South Africa

2000       First prize in the MTN Art Colours Awards of Gauteng, South Africa

1999       Best painting student Pro Arte School of Arts, Pretoria, South Africa

SELECTED CORPORATE COLLECTIONS

Delaire Graff Wine Estate, South Africa
Ellerman Contemporary, South Africa
European Investment Bank, South Africa
Grainvest Futures, South Africa
Johannesburg City Council, South Africa
Johann Jacobs Museum, South Africa
Laurence Graff Collection, South Africa
Parkdev, South Africa
Rand Merchant Bank, South Africa
Saronsberg Wine Estate, South Africa
South African Embassy, Nigeria
Standard Chartered Bank, South Africa