It’s carnival season in Jamaica-born, Brooklyn based multi-media artist Paul Anthony Smith’s latest body of work now on view at Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea. Starting with photos he took during celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago, Smith manipulates the images, prints them, adds paint and employs his signature picotage technique by which he creates patterns of tiny tears in the surface of the painted photographs. Here, as in many pieces, the tear patterns take the form of fences or walls constructed of patterned concrete blocks. Placed between viewers and the celebrants, the barriers allow looking but give viewers pause to question what kind of access we have to the places and cultures pictured. (On view through Oct 26th).
