Torn

Torn 

Smith`s latest work questions the fragmentary nature of our modern lifestyles.We are all forced to move swiftly from one task to another; none of the paths we follow seem to link to the other regions in our lives - the other little fragments of paper, which, to an outside observer, contain everything we are and ever have been.

Yet can we change what will be? Can we make the fragments of paper join together and be one again? And can we make them finally interlink? More to the point, will we ever succeed in making out lives more than just a stack of paper - and should we want too?

Life is like a stack of paper - delicate and erased by even the slightest breeze; but also, beautiful, resilient, and unpredictable. Millions, even billions, of years can be spent building beauty, only for it to be destroyed in a second; even then, it is not truly gone: it returns at a later time, with a different, majestic, equally intricate solution, only for the slate to be wiped clean, time and time again.

The paper leaves no scars; it is enjoyed in the moment, then lost, forgotten, to reappear in a different form for each different observer. This is the way things have always been; is it how they always will be?

Circles, Squares and Triangles

Circles, Squares and Triangles

Smith`s original work uses the 3 most basic shapes to challenge perceptions of the way we see both natural and unnatural forms. Must our minds always be penned in to the straight lines of the square? Or can we think in the more free flowing manner of the circle? And yet there is another form of thought, that of the Triangle, a shape which should be so elementary and simple and yet still seems somewhat unusual. In a style which is coming to be typical of Smith`s work, this image throws up questions at every corner. What, for example, do you take to be the significance of the uniform grey background? Limitless hidden meanings are to be found as you scratch each layer below the surface.

Introduction to Sideways Arrow

Sideways Arrow is a showcase for the work of Cumbrian artist John Smith, who challenges perceptions of the meaning of art and of modern life as a whole. Basic shapes are an area of paticular interest - no other aspect of art can be so elementary and yet so often ignored by the ordinary man and woman. Such shapes are everywhere, in almost everything produced by human hands, and yet we never stop for a second to ponder their significance.

Why is it that we confine ourselves to building in straight lines rather than the free-flowing forms of nature? Look around you now. The walls you sit within, like almost everything around you, have been built in straight, definite lines. But must this always be the case? Smith`s work provides a refreshing change to the closed-mindedness of the people of influence in our modern world.