Last week I attended the opening of Pat Smith’s first solo show in SoHo at the CVZ Contemporary Gallery. Pat and I met way back in college in Massachusetts and the idea of having our own show in NYC was just a dream at that time. One of the best classes we took together was Jerry Kearns “NYC Pop”. In that class we would visit working artists in their studios in NYC and were able to see first hand what it took to make it here. The biggest thing I took away from the class was that no two stories were the same, and there was no one way to make it. Some people survived on grants, others did commissioned works to survive, while still others would simply follow their own vision and things would happen for them. Pat is one of the latter people. He has had a distinct style of his own since the very early days. His latest work is yet another example of this. From the instant you see one of Pat’s films, to any of his paintings in the gallery, the work couldn’t be anyone else’s. Pat is one of the hardest working people I know and he does what only he can.
If you are around the Gallery at any time stop in and see it. The show “Configurations” is up through Oct 16th and Pat’s work can always be seen at www.patsmith.com. On Pat’s blog you can see a great time lapse clip of him painting one of the pieces for the show. Congratulations on the show.
