Ray Smith

RAY SMITH (United States, 1959).
"Model" 1988.
Watercolor on paper
Signed and dated in the lower margin.
Presents label on the back of the gallery Joan Prats, Barcelona.
Measurements: 60.5 x 77.5 cm; 75 x 92 cm (frame).

Ray Smith developed a fully personal work, rooted in Latin American magical realism (he lived long periods in Mexico) and European surrealism. In the watercolor painting of the eighties, both currents converge in an incisive socio-political criticism of his country of origin, which far from being literal, admits multiple readings.

An American painter and sculptor born in Brownsville (Texas) but raised in Mexico, Ray Smith began his training precisely in this country, studying fresco painting with artisans trained in the local tradition. He later continued his studies at academies in Mexico and the United States, finally settling in Mexico City. He was represented by the influential art dealer Gagosian at a young age, and later showed his work with Sperone Westwater and Ramis Barquet in New York. Over the past two decades, Smith has held more than fifty exhibitions around the world, mainly in the United States and Mexico but also in Japan, Europe and South America. In 1989 he participated in the Biennial of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and has also taken part in the First Drawing Triennial of the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona and in the group exhibition entitled "Latin American Artists of the Twentieth Century", which toured museums such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Kunsthalle in Cologne and the MOMA in New York. Works by Ray Smith are currently held in outstanding collections such as the MNCARS in Madrid, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey and others.