John Holt Smith is a Fort-Worth-based artist whose paintings are studies in ultimate abstraction, reducing figurative images to their most elemental state. Smith's ultra-methodical approach blends traditional and contemporary, organic and industrial, artistic and scientific processes. Always seeking ways to commingle figurative painting with progressive abstraction and photography, he discovered the visual bridge of color sequencing after learning about spectroscopy-a process that captures light from an object in space and uses that light to analyze its composition, position, and rate of movement. Smith achieves a multi-dimensional luminosity, at once the embodiment of traditional and contemporary aesthetics. The intricately layered lines shimmer and vibrate on their cool, flat support, creating palpable rhythm and depth throughout. The colors absorb and reflect light to produce a subtle glow that emanates from within, revealing the aesthetic and spiritual essence of both the structural components and the system they create. Smith received a B.F.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he concurrently worked with artist Ann Hamilton on many exhibitions, including those at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. and the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. During college, he received the William Dole Scholarship and a President's Undergraduate Fellowship, and also spent a year in Florence, Italy, studying art and art history.
b. 1968, Fort Worth, TX