DISCREPANCIES

UITSTALLING ART GALLERY

MARCEL HABETSLAAN 26, GENK, BELGIUM

28 AUGUST - 3 OCTOBER 2021

This unique collection of Lionel Smit's artworks opens with on 28th August.

On the schism between thought and form: Discrepancies

an Essay by Ellen Agnew

“When a light appears in the darkness, the darkness becomes richer; and when a darkness appears in the light, the light becomes richer! Uniformity impoverishes, discrepancy enriches!” 

– Mehmet Murat Ildan

Although, perhaps most notably, it is a body of work navigating incongruities within colour and texture, focusing on various tensions between elements of chance and controlled renderings of countenance, Lionel Smit’s Discrepancies – on exhibition at Uitstalling Gallery in Genk, Belgium – is also a body of work that does not shy away from the unsettled distinction between what we see and what we know.

In John Berger’s 1972 influential book, Ways of Seeing, he begins by illustrating the discrepancy between images and words: “Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognises before it can speak.” While seeing is what establishes our place within the world, it is words that we use to describe and explain this world and our place in it. “We explain the world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it”.

This conceptual concern is one observed by Dr Ernst Van der Wal in his text Manipulated Image: In the eye of the beholder, written in line with Smit’s 2019 exhibition, Manipulated Image, at Everard Read in Johannesburg, South Africa. Of Smit’s work, Van der Wal writes that “as with most of his prior work, Smit is led by an organic process of creation — one that, most often, culminates in some conceptual synthesis between thought and form.” Here, one must consider Berger’s differentiation between seeing and words, between form and thought — and, as such, one must acknowledge that while Smit’s creative process certainly does culminate in some conceptual synthesis between these notions, it also — as is made evident by the words of Mehmet Murat Ildan – reveals the schism between thought and form, and in turn, makes the work all the more richer for it. 

In Active Transition #2, a sensitively rendered illustration of a face, a woman with her eyes cast downwards and chin tucked, forms the basis of a series of colour and textural variations – both on the canvas and within the entire body of work. This work is one of Smit’s smaller paintings, where the female subject is brought into ‘being’ through loose yet controlled brushstrokes; the form of her neck made visible by a simple, slightly broken, soft blue painted line. Positioned in contrast to a thickly applied shape of colour just beside (and what the viewer will deem as being behind) the figure’s neckline, these varying marks are also in conflict with the more resolute and closely controlled marks rendering her face. These variations in line and form and colour, and thus in texture, suggest a surface in constant flux — an indication of Smit’s continual navigation of and attempt to emulate the world as seen by him. Here, Smit is skilfully exploring the chasm between what he sees and what he knows — capturing this discrepancy on the surface of the canvas.

“We only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice,” continues Berger. “… We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves. Our vision is continually active, continually moving, continually holding things in a circle around itself, constituting what is present to us as we are.”

In slight contrast to Active Transition #2, another painting, titled Irreducible Representations #1 — and also rendered in a variety of blues and warm earthy tones — demonstrates how Smit has emulated the face of a woman almost completely in his more resolute and tightly controlled, shorter lines; so controlled that the marks rendering this portrait almost ‘disappear’ behind the actual image. Her hair is made up of a series of soft, long and loose lines, suggesting wispy tresses tied back in a bun. Here, too, her eyes are cast downwards, yet this time one gets the impression that in keeping her gaze down, she is dismissing the viewer, dismissing the artist. Here, we are privy to the artist’s relationship with both his work and his subject, and again we are reminded of one of the many discrepancies between how we see and what we are informed by. Blue shapes from the perceived background of the painting are brought forward; large swathes of this particular tone cover her sketched hair, with smaller areas peeking through the rendition of the subject’s skin on her face, neck and décolletage — and we are presented with a ghostly apparition of the layers underneath.

In this regard, Smit’s textural and tonal engagement with the surfaces of each canvas allows for a range of artworks that each have an emotional quality and value of their own. Throughout his creative process, Smit carefully considers each element that makes up the image. There is a sense of restrain, where tension between the controlled rendering of his subjects and the marked variety of paint application — elements of chance in Smit’s self-developed world — creates an ambivalence. As the variations in line, form, colour, and texture of Smit’s works suggest a surface in constant flux, we too become aware of the world’s ever-changing discrepancies; those that are in constant influence over our everyday lives and of which result in the continual layering of choices, and of decisions. For Smit, if any of the elements within his works were to change, so too would the emotional value of the painting: with every new variation, a cause and effect will follow.

Irreducible Representations #2 sees a female figure with her arm raised above her head, her eyes catching our gaze as she smooths her hair behind her neck. In this work, the foundational lines of her form are still visible; her shoulders and elbow merely a suggestion forming a bridge between the discrepancy of what we know and what we see. Through his gestural use of lines, Smit’s subject appears to almost be emerging from the canvas – a decision that, if any of the elements within this work were to change, would have surely limited her movement and rendered her confined to the boundaries of the canvas. It is through this combination of action and reaction that Smit has carefully placed his subject on the threshold of the artwork’s surface, on the threshold between what we perceive as an image of a woman and what really is the image of a woman. As in Irreducible Representations #1 here, too, the orange tones of the background remain uncovered in areas of her face, neck and hand; these large swathes of orange are held in contrast to the smaller, more refined lines of her face – and make the artwork all the more richer for it. 

In likeness to the contrast between light and dark, between Smit’s loose and rigorous forms and their more revised counterparts, there is a contrast, a discrepancy, between seeing and being seen. The act of seeing is active – it is an act of choice where we see what we look at, and relate to it from our perception. In doing so, we must surely also be aware that while we can see, we can also be seen; we are a part of the visible world. In Active Transition #3 Smit’s female figure, once more, is looking downwards and away from the viewer’s gaze. She is almost completely rendered by the same fine, controlled lines as the faces depicted in the previous works described. However, her neck and chest, also beneath her arm, are made up of broad strokes of dark blue and burnt umber, with hints of an acid yellow applied energetically to the painting’s surface: Smit is reminding us that this is a painting. And here, again, we see Smit’s trajectory of chance in confrontation with control; the tension between his vision of a female subject, and his yearning to make visible the many discrepancies we are faced with when perceiving this subject, when considering the visible world.

Active Transition #3’s subject has cast-down eyes too, perhaps also demonstrating the very understanding of discrepancy that Berger has led us to: “Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.” In distinguishing the line of sight of his subjects’ eyes throughout this body of work, Smit is surely grappling with the understanding that when the eye, the sight, of the other combines with our own eye, it is made fully credible that we are a part of the visible world. Borne from the way the paint is applied to the canvas; of the slight colour variations and textural differences created by Smit’s mark-making – Discrepancies is a series of artworks imaging the struggle between seeing and being seen; of the ever-present gap between thought and form, between words and seeing, between the constant flux of the world that surrounds us — where with each new variation, a cause and effect will follow and enrich.

Uitstalling Art Gallery

Uitstalling Art Gallery’ deals in a distinctive combination of painting, drawing and sculpture. Thanks to their local network in South-Africa they select artists with a proven record and an extended biography. The location for ‘Uitstalling’ was chosen carefully on the site of a previous coal mine with an extension to a private Victorian style house. A perfect spot to experience contemporary art in combination with an intriguing environment. Uitstalling wants people to experience quality above all and in all they do. The ‘Uitstalling’ aims for a mix of international established and emerging artists that exceed the ordinary limits of art. The gallery combines art in a way that visitors will be moved and only supports artists that they love themselves.

For inquiries at the gallery:
 +32(0)475 32 28 26
danny@uitstalling.com

Opening hours:
Wednesday - Sunday
1pm-6pm

Address:
Marcel Habetslaan 26
3600 Genk
Belgium

Learn more or view the artworks on the Uitstalling website >