Ki Smith Gallery operates beyond the realm of standard industry practice. The young artists represented by the gallery are a small, carefully-selected group, all of whom have distinct methods of expression and thought.
What interests the gallery most about its artists is their constant creation of new artistic forms: they do not simply paint or sculpt or photograph. They find unexplored ways to communicate their ideas: recycled papermaking, pouring polyurethane, using shadow to reveal color, making the functional object nonfunctional, or mining the world’s river of unwanted garments. Their moments of inspiration mark the beginning of their work at the Gallery. The Gallery immerses itself in each exhibition from conception to execution, using the gallery space to fully manifest the artist’s visual language. The Gallery aims to move away from recent practices that foundationalize the viewer in screen-only interactions with art, stressing the importance of experiencing art with all of the senses reality provides. The Gallery’s unique range of publications — each an art object of its own — are dedicated to the documentation and preservation of the artist’s stories. By drawing from a specialized group of young scholars, the gallery brings its brick and mortar into contact with longer traditions of art history as well as the outside world.
Ki Smith Gallery prioritizes the organic growth of its artists without market-driven manipulation by working closely with collectors to help them create collections with object-centered histories. They not only understand the intentions of the artist, but also consider their own personal and emotional connections to the work.
Ki Smith Gallery takes the larger trends and conversations of other galleries and auction houses into consideration, but its group of peers — artists, patrons, friends, and scholars — are compelled by an unquantifiably deep love of and respect for art. The gallery wants to find new, imaginative means of communicating it and sharing it.
