‘As Twilight Fades’,   ‘Paper Dolls’,   ‘The Crux of our Joining’,   ‘The Shards that Still Remain’
Layered Silk Screen and Stone Lithograph, 55 x 75 cm. Edition of 5.



‘The Fragile Nature of Intimacy’ presents an equivocal harmony of digital and hand rendered artworks, two voices brought together to contrast and complement one another in exploring both sides of the discord between corporeal and metaphysical understandings of ‘being’; what Barthes describes as the division between ‘The Real’ and ‘The Lived’.

The hand printed element of this body of work is a collection of 5 hybrid prints, composed of several silk screen layers registered onto a stone lithograph. The differing densities of the water and oil based inks allow for a greater depth, enunciating delicate nuances and maximising the textural qualities of the hand drawn images.

The digital artworks are composed of 5 Lambda C-Type prints mounted onto dibond. The images are studio photographs which were then manipulated together to create layered and dynamic bodies. These offset historical perceptions of the nude figure passing between a multiplicity of body and gesture. The razor edge of these digital artworks stand in contrast to the deckled edge of the hand printed works further underlining the ideological underpinning of the two mediums.

The work presents figurative interactions, textural representations and intertwined bodies. These etherial figures act as referents to the body talking of the emotional and transcendental nature of our tender interactions. They discuss the dissension between socio-cultural and historical perceptions of the corporal body and the limitations of our physical vessels. Their desire for contact is a desperate attempt to understand themselves and each other; a tender requisite for validation on their search for love and identity.

The work pushes past the boundaries of the physical world by distorting the familiar. What at first appears ostensible subsequently reveals itself as a bricolage of body and gesture, time and experience. The two mediums stand in juxtaposition, enunciating different facets of the same investigation and giving different perspectives upon the same questions. This allows for a greater exploration and reflection upon the tenderness and toughness of this temporal place, sparking thoughts of modern love, body politics and intimacy while simultaneously touching upon questions of gender, power and relationships.









‘Blushing Innocence’,   ‘Tender Symmetry’,   ‘Divergence’,   ‘Fragile Adrift’,   ‘Jouissance’
Lambda C-Type, 54 x 42cm, Edition of 20.



© Aaron Smyth. All Rights Reserved.
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Aaron Smyth © All Rights Reserved