Jonathan Smith - Untold Stories
Saturated with an intense palette and dramatically cinematic, Smith’s images are redolent of the mysteries of Raymond Chandler and the visual impact of contemporary film-noir sensibilities. Each picture evokes a tale of its own. One view shows an alarming orange interior seen through a living room window, echoing the drop of a blood red lamp, faint through a thick fog in a long shot of a midtown apartment building at night.
Like the chapters of a novel, the photographs form a composite of grit and elegance with characters conveying a disassociated expectation, quiet but ready for life. Emerging from shadows, the sitters are interwoven in an elusive narrative with hidden identities and concealed motives, unknown to the viewer. The exhibition is a mosaic of motel rooms, roadsides, streets and cityscapes. The passions of the sitters are more implied than documented, sensual, but never explicitly carnal. Smith’s use of lighting and décor emotionally augment his true subjects - the colors of night air and the abandonment that floats in it.
- Rick Wester
All images © Jonathan Smith
