Cedric Smith

Review: http://www.artandantiques.net/Articles/Photography/Cedric-Smith.asp

Supporting Gallery: http://www.dillongallery.com/index.php?p=exhibits&id=archive&exh=200704_playing_god&i=23

Web Site: http://cedricsmith.com/html/homepage.htm

Bio: "Cedric Smith was born in Philadelphia in 1970. He grew up in Thomaston, Georgia, where he moved with his family when he was a young boy. He currently resides in Atlanta, Ga.
Smith is a self-taught artist who while eschewing the “so-called rules of art”, has created a personal genre of work. He draws on a wide range of influences and sources, both traditional and contemporary, and which include landscape art, pop art, brand advertising and photography to express his poignant observations of life in the rural south. A prolific artist, Smith works with a honed discipline on his compositions, seamlessly morphing photographic images into his richly textured pieces, applying and removing layers and lettering.
Much of his current work is devoted to redressing an observation that dogged him as a child - the absence of Blacks in advertising and on the labels of popular brands." (aviscafineart.com)

New Work: "Smith’s color photographs, all modestly sized and priced, feature the same sort of old-fashioned studio portraiture of black subjects, each vintage print pointedly re-photographed in front of a Southern landscape: A nervous-looking young man in his Sunday best is placed at a church’s entry, a startled child finds herself perched atop a fat cotton boll." (Art and Antiques)

Smith's work deals with bringing images from the past and using them in the present for his art. He is using these old black and white photographs, not taken by him, and making them into something unique and original. He is giving these pictures a new life and a new voice and making it something he can call his own. I thought it was interesting to give these people in the photographs a second chance at being heard. Having their portraits re-done. I felt that I could relate to this project. He is redefining these portraits for what he is trying to say, just as I am using my family videos to explore thoughts and make my own statement in the present.