Art Galleries

This content was published: February 20, 2018. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.

Joshua West Smith

Sylvania North View Gallery

Every Truth Blocks Another

Photograph of desert landscape with blue sky; in the foreground is an abstract form, a layer of blue with circular holes that reveal the blue sky behind it.

  • February 20 to March 30, 2018
  • Opening reception and gallery talk: Tuesday, February 20, 2-5pm
  • Closing reception: Friday, March 30, 6-8pm

Southern California-based artist Joshua West Smith will be exhibiting a series of recent photographs and sculptures. The suite of photographs explore nature, beauty, harshness and sympathetic alien bodies. Included sculptural objects utilize diverse materials such as fabric, metal, stone, wood and plastic to create physical collaborations that delight in being viewed.

Smith says the following about his work:

The first simple truth is that I make to discover what I do not know. The second truth is that I strive to make shaky ambiguous things, whose imbalance and openness exemplify my belief in an unstable world. The third truth is that, to me, the things that I make, once constructed, seem out of time, like words spoken softly that hang strangely in the air, accruing more meaning the longer they stay aloft.

I know that I must rely on language to easily achieve my daily goals; this however is not done without some degree of animosity. I often view language with the specific distain one holds for an unrepentant liar. This is the reason I relish the ambiguous object, which defies a name. Something that is almost this and almost that leads to new places and because it is not this and not that it is a new thing, which exists for a novel instant outside of language.

My hope is that I can make items that have a capacity to act, objects that shimmer with possibility under scrutiny, and things that enhance our perception after our backs have been turned to them.

  • Panorama view of art gallery with landscape photos hanging on walls on the left and right sides and in the center stand 4 sculptures made of wood and stone and metal. In the background are floor to ceiling glass windows that show the trees outside.
  • A sculpture on the left has 3 stones at its base and a grey screen with holes in it; a sculpture on the right has a wooden screen with holes in it standing on end with a stone as a base on one side. 2 landscape photos hang on either side; behind is a floor to ceiling, wall to wall dark curtain with a grid of large holes in it.
  • On the back wall is a landscape photo; on the gallery floor are two sculptures made of wood screens that have holes in them; each has a large white stone at its base.
  • Large sculpture made with steel rods; 3 large rocks are at the base; it has a wide screen with large holes on the left, and a wire mobile with bells on the right. In the background is a wall with a landscape photo hanging on it.
  • In the foreground is a mobile made of steel wires with brass bells, and a central wire with a rock hanging from it; a landscape photograph hangs on a wall in the background.
  • A dark curtain with a grid of large holes hangs in the foreground, it is parted in the middle and tied off on either side and reveals a gallery with sculptures inside.
  • Color photograph of a desert landscape showing distant hills and sky in the background on the upper left of the image. In the foreground is a rectangular blue fabric with a grid of large holes cut out of it.

Gallery hours: Monday – Friday 8am-4pm, Saturday 11am-4pm

Directions: Follow signs to the bookstore and visitor parking. The gallery is located in the Communications and Technology (CT) building, adjacent to the bookstore on the NE corner of campus.