Roxa Smith
I began painting my solitary chair series during the early days of the pandemic. Isolated from the rest of the world, I painted a series of 8×10” gouache paintings “The Covid Chairs,” journaling my experience during the quarantine. In each image, a single chair became the centerpiece of the painting surrounded by fern-like plants, seasonal flowers or imagery referencing the social and political upheaval of the time.
As the pandemic unfolded, I expanded this series into “The Language of Chairs” making larger 30×40” paintings as well continuing the small gouache on board pieces and now, for the Museum of Pocket Art, creating this series of 3×4” gouache on paper chair paintings. “The Language of Chairs” further explores the symbolism of chairs against the backdrop of a changing world. These isolated chairs serve as visual metaphors for me to comment on personal, social, environmental and cultural issues. Some chairs have personal family history and are placed in settings that reflect feelings of joy, sadness or isolation. In other paintings, the chairs are symbolic in nature and in their context comment on the unfolding environmental, cultural and political uncertainty facing Americans and the world at large. In this series of palm sized chair paintings, I invite the viewers to zoom into these images and contemplate the broader implications and narratives within them in an intimate and personal way.
About the artist
Roxa Smith was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. She came to the US in her teens and attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, earning a BA in Art History and German with a minor in Visual Arts. She later received a Graduate Certificate in the Fine Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Roxa has received a range of awards, residencies, and fellowships including a grant from the Vermont Studio Center, a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Painting Fellowship and the Basil Alkazi Fellowship at the Sheldon Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. She has exhibited her art extensively in the US including most recently in a solo show (2023) at C24Gallery (NYC) where she is currently represented. Roxa Smith lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.