My name is Simone Smith (1998, Pretoria , South Africa) I create photos, paintings, drawings and media art. By emphasizing aesthetics, I try to intensify personal moments created by acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer round and round in circles.
My photos are a drawn reflection upon the art of photography itself: thoroughly self-referential, yet no less aesthetically pleasing, and therefore deeply inscribed in the history of modernism – made present most clearly in my exploration of some of the most hallowed of modernist paradigms. Moments are portrayed that only exist to punctuate the human drama in order to clarify our existence and to find poetic meaning in everyday life.
My works sometimes radiate a cold and concealed violence. At times, disturbing beauty emerges. The visual fascination, along with the conciseness of the exhibitions, further complicates the reception of their manifold layers of meaning. By applying abstraction, I use references and ideas that are so integrated into the process of the composition of the work that they may escape those who do not take the time to explore how and why these images haunt you, like a good film, long after you’ve seen them.
My works don’t reference recognizable form. The results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted.