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Keir Smith
Over the last decade my work has been deeply influenced by the art of the Italian Renaissance and particularly by the altarpieces and fresco decorations in the Cremonese church of San Sigismondo. I have repeatedly turned for inspiration to the 16th century painters Camillo Boccaccino, Giulio Campi and his brother Antonio who were responsible for the remarkable pilaster frescoes there. These bizarre paintings renegotiate the conventional agreement that decoration is minor and submissive and that the biblical narratives, which they surround are of prime importance. The Ognissanti Series of sculptures, refer directly to these frescoes. They consist of fruit and other, less recognizable things, bodily organs, perhaps, hanging from the sides of rudimentary architectural structures.
A more recent group of bronzes, the Annunciation Vases embrace Marian iconography. The elaborate floral symbolism associated with the worship of the Virgin permeates these sculptures. They allude not only to altarpieces which depict the Annunciation, where the lily is a reference to the purity of Mary, but additionally to those funerary monuments in Parish Churches which take the form of a mourning figure weeping at the base of a cinerary urn. They are a conjunction of that which is joyful and that which is melancholy.
Over the last decade my work has been deeply influenced by the art of the Italian Renaissance and particularly by the altarpieces and fresco decorations in the Cremonese church of San Sigismondo. I have repeatedly turned for inspiration to the 16th century painters Camillo Boccaccino, Giulio Campi and his brother Antonio who were responsible for the remarkable pilaster frescoes there. These bizarre paintings renegotiate the conventional agreement that decoration is minor and submissive and that the biblical narratives, which they surround are of prime importance. The Ognissanti Series of sculptures, refer directly to these frescoes. They consist of fruit and other, less recognizable things, bodily organs, perhaps, hanging from the sides of rudimentary architectural structures.
A more recent group of bronzes, the Annunciation Vases embrace Marian iconography. The elaborate floral symbolism associated with the worship of the Virgin permeates these sculptures. They allude not only to altarpieces which depict the Annunciation, where the lily is a reference to the purity of Mary, but additionally to those funerary monuments in Parish Churches which take the form of a mourning figure weeping at the base of a cinerary urn. They are a conjunction of that which is joyful and that which is melancholy.
 Lorenzo, bronze, h240cm x w55cm x d55cm, p.o.a. |
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 Paola, h198cm x w36cm x d36cm bronze, £16000 |