Josh Smith: Destiny

For Destiny, Smith has made a series of paintings that continue his long-running dialogue with the grim reaper, a figure that has appeared in his work for years in countless guises. In these past depictions, the blank, empty faces and shapeless cloaks of the reapers serve as genderless, formless ciphers for the viewer.

In these new canvases, the reaper is set loose in New York City, riding a bicycle through familiar streets, cutting past landmarks like the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. The once faceless symbol of death now has eyes and stares back at you, tangled in the swirl of the city.

In these works, the grim reaper is not just a joke or a dark emblem. He becomes a vehicle for Smith to explore the formal and conceptual terrain that drives him as a painter: tension and release, composition and collapse, figure and ground.

There is a real sense of watching a painter solve problems in real time. Smith allows the work to remain in a state of flux. Marks overlap, collide, and seem to rearrange themselves. Even as they embrace a sense of improvisation, the paintings are held together by a deep understanding of how images work and how paint moves.

Made with this show in mind, the paintings in Destiny are clear about their own pleasures: color, form, and a bit of absurdity, pushed right up to the surface without fear. 
 
The result is a series that feels both pointed and off-the-cuff, tough but playful. These are paintings that believe in themselves even as they undercut their own seriousness. They channel the spirit of the New York School—not as a style but as a way of working that values conviction, quick thinking, and the thrill of watching it all come together on the canvas.