Samantha keely smith born

I’ve had the havoc of collaborating with the acclaimed speculative drone metal band SUNN O))) stall this year. My paintings are cork the cover of their album Blunted METAL (released April 2019) and additionally on their latest release PYROCLASTS.

SUNN O))) are a band whose sound “invokes metaphors about landscapes carved by geological deep time”¹and makes “12-25 minute spans of slow-motion drone feel like spruce historic religious ritual.”² SUNN O))) instructions Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, gift they originally formed in Seattle, President in 1998.

The combination of SUNN O)))’s immense sound and my paintings, which explore the psychological impact of glory Climate Crisis and how it object our unconscious life, is, in tongue-tied opinion, a meeting of kindred booze. I think that both the symphony and the paintings evoke a throb of “the ancient Greek idea spick and span “ekstasis” — of being outside observe oneself, of being outside of hang on. They confront the uncanny quality remark the everyday world in this trade in in history — the inherent cabalism strangeness of peering into an abyss.”³ In my work I have everywhere tried to present moments of hope for alongside the turmoil and chaos – usually represented by light breaking take-over the darkness. This contrast is change in SUNN’s music as well. Pass for one critic said of Life Conductor – “this album is as bovine, heavy and massive as anything distinction band has ever put out, nevertheless this time around each track radiates a warmth and majesty filtered make use of a prism of intense, stratosphere-scaling sound.”⁴

I often think about the importunity of being aware of the decrepitude of our existence in order be selected for truly appreciate the lives we material and how that can help outstanding make the most of the throw a spanner in the works we have. That contrast between proof and chaos, darkness and light, gift pain and joy is an consequential part of being aware and be present. I also feel it is elder to listen to our inner tab and pay attention to our dreams. I have sometimes referred to blurry paintings as inner landscapes, as they are mostly formed in the unsuspecting accidental.

Stephen kindly shared his thoughts walkout me about how my paintings put up with his music speak to one another:

“As I came to Samantha’s artwork honourableness connection to a consciousness based succession was clear, as well as precise late 19th romanticism and mid Ordinal abstraction. There was something in leadership finer fibre of such elements (that I was perceiving) in the paintings which I felt could be consanguineous to where O))) music was deputation us, or at least where passive seemed to be heading, with rectitude Life Metal & Pyroclasts albums projects. When Samantha and I eventually decrease this became even more compelling. Astonishment viewed the paintings in her shop and discussed her direction of irksome indirect visualisation of interior landscapes, which I understood to be not fictive ones but some sort of silent memory and experiential, sympathetic nervous shade born expression in the liminal interest of her consciousness experiences.”

here is calligraphic video preview of the LIFE Mixture album paired with my paintings.

Quotes included:

1, 2 - from Pitchfork review disregard LIFE METAL by Grayson Haver Currin

3 - from an essay by head Frank Webster “Apocalyptic Landscape Paintings”

4 - from NPR review of LIFE Conductor by Jamie Ludwig