On October 7^th, my class and I took a trip over to the Rox Gallery in the Lower East Side to see artist Tom Smith’s exhibition “Heavenly Bodies”. I have been to other galleries on the Lower West Side before that were much larger than this one, and for much higher prices of art, but never to a smaller, more concentrated Lower East Side Gallery. This experience was exceptionally great because we got to meet and speak to Tom Smith himself. There is no better way to analyze a piece of art or any other work than talking to the creator of the piece. Tom Smith was very informative on how he made each painting and why he chose to place the paintings in the gallery the way that he did.

Mr. Smith said that it was a multi year project that was created in more than one location. Each painting was done based on a vision that he saw when was in a specific place. What was extremely interesting to me was because this project took several years, Smith was able to use the method of “progression” where he would create the same type creation using different styles to create it. For the first section of paintings, he cut little strips of 2 different paintings and glued them together creating a new form of the original idea. The next step Smith decided to add some 3D texture to his work by cutting half circle-shaped wood and putting that on it.

The third and final sequence of art was created to appear 3D by the way that it was painted. This art is essentially an optical illusion because the works that are actually 3D don’t appear 3D from far but as you get closer it became more clear. As opposed to the 3^rd type where it appeared to be 3D from far and then when you looked closely it became obvious that it was actually just painted to appear that way.

All in all, my experience at the Rox Gallery was awesome. Being able to meet and speak to Tom Smith was a treat and because the art was not as expensive I was able to enjoy it more and dream more realistically about owning one of these fantastic pieces one day.