Jamaican artist Paul Anthony Smith is now represented by Timothy Taylor in London, and will show new works with the gallery at Frieze London in October. Timothy Taylor will share representation of Smith with Jack Shainman Gallery, which currently represents the artist in New York.
Born in 1988 in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, Smith studied ceramics at the Kansas City Art Institute before relocating to New York in 2014. In paintings and photo-based work, the artist explores themes of identity and migration, particularly his own Caribbean heritage. Using his signature “picotage” technique, Smith manipulates and distorts inkjet pigment prints by puncturing them to reveal the white paper underneath, at once embellishing and obscuring the images. His work frequently uses motifs like fences, masks, or the perforated breeze block walls common across mid-century Caribbean architecture to symbolize mechanisms of control, concealment, and isolation.
“His startlingly original use of traditional mediums—photography, oil paint, or picotage—reveals a complex and profound engagement with depth and surface and between content and material,” said gallery founder Timothy Taylor.
Smith’s work is featured in several prestigious collections, including the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin. He is currently the subject of an exhibition at the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York, and previously had a solo show at the Blaffer Art Museum in Houston in 2022. He has also had solo exhibitions at Jack Shainman in New York, Luis de Jesus Los Angeles, and Green Gallery in Milwaukee.