Title: Face 1
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Dated and signed on 2009
Unframed: 50cm x 45cm
Smit has international recognition for his expressive contemporary portraiture. For these distinctive portraits he makes use of anonymous models from the Cape Malay community. On the artist’s website he justified this choice by stating that “these women epitomize a hybrid identity within the South African context and reflects the disintegrating construction of identity within our increasingly globalized world. He also explained his style of painting as “representing a dialogue between the figurative and expressive abstract” (LionelSmit 2021:1)
The artworks Face 1, and Face 2 was part of an exhibition titled Residue held in Franschhoek at the Grand Provence gallery in 2009.
