Skew Gallery is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition for Laurel Smith. Red Glare is a site-specific collection of new works inspired by Smith’s process of writing her dissertation for her Ph.D. Developing a variety of elements for her exhibition, including large format photo-imaging, found objects, drawing, and manufactured multiples, Smith visually translates her dissertation’s philosophical exploration of “every thing you see that is coloured, titled, judged, considered, translated, interpreted, perceived, experienced or read as red is evacuated to Mars.”

A world devoid of red is a playful notion that Smith has fun with through her suggestion of sending it to the red planet of Mars in thousands of tiny red rockets. It is through her artistic process of research, collecting and meditative, ritual drawing that Smith began to realize the authority this little word holds through language, as well as humanities potent emotional and physical associations to the colour.

Laurel Smith is a contemporary minimal painter who lives in Calgary, Canada. She received a BFA with distinction from the Alberta College of Art + Design and her MFA from Concordia University in Montreal. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the University of Calgary’s Faculty of Education. Her research topic is “red.” Smith is the recipient of several awards including: Canada Council for the Arts; Alberta Foundation for the Arts; Eastern Canada Winner of the RBC Investments 6th Annual Painting Competition; The Brucebo Foundation; Concordia University Fellowship; Sheila Hugh MacKay Foundation; the Illingworth Kerr Travel Award and the Illingworth Kerr Academic Achievement Award. Her works have been exhibited across North America and in Europe. Selected solo exhibits include CIXI, Ornaminimalism, Paintings by Laurel Smith, LS is more, and Critical Distance. Selected group exhibitions include: soft core Hard Edge (22 artists from LA and Calgary), Inhabiting Spaces (4 Calgary artists touring exhibition to Poland, Portugal, Finland, Canada), Neo-Minimalism, The Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art: Living Utopia and Disaster, About Time: Contemporary Painting in Calgary, and The 6th annual RBC Canadian Painting Competition. Smith’s paintings are in public collections including the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Visby Konstmuseum, The Glenbow Museum, Manitoba Hydro Permanent Collection, Calgary Civic Arts Alliance, The Royal Bank of Canada, among other corporate and private collections. Catalogue essays and exhibition reviews have been written about the work. Smith also teaches art and writes articles about the art and research practices of her peers.