Public Art Fund Talks: Paul Anthony Smith

Join us for a conversation between artist Paul Anthony Smith and Public Art Fund Assistant Curator Jenée Daria Strand as they discuss Melodies from a running spring, the artist’s first public art exhibition, on view across 300 JCDecaux bus shelters in New York, Chicago, and Boston. The exhibition presents nine new grayscale photographic portraits that subvert mainstream representations of Jamaica and the Caribbean diaspora.

During the talk, Smith will reflect on the conceptual framework behind Melodies from a running spring, the connections between photography and ceramic practice, and the tension between visibility and erasure in public space. The conversation will explore the role of grayscale as a counterpoint to the saturated aesthetics of tourism, and how Smith’s images open space for fragmented memory, ambiguity, and new imaginings of the Caribbean. Rendered through Smith’s distinctive picotage technique—a method of perforating the photographic surface by hand—the works resist romanticized portrayals of the region and instead offer textured, multidimensional images shaped by memory, identity, and displacement. 

Attend in person at Jack Shainman Gallery (46 Lafayette St). The talk will be followed by a reception. Registration is required, and capacity is limited. Capacity is first come, first served so please arrive early. Your registration does not guarantee entry.

Accessibility:

Email Gabriela López Dena, Associate Curator of Public Practice, at [email protected] with questions and requests for accessibility. Please send any needs for services or accommodations to support your participation in this program, including ASL interpretations, hearing aids, and simultaneous translation, by July 1.

Image Credit
Paul Anthony Smith
Melody #6, 2025
Unique picotage on inkjet print, mounted on museum board
Courtesy of the artist
Presented by Public Art Fund as a part of Paul Anthony Smith: Melodies of a running spring, an exhibition on 300 JCDecaux bus shelters in New York, Chicago, and Boston, July 9 – Sept 7, 2025.

Paul Anthony Smith (b. Jamaica, 1988) creates paintings and picotage on pigment prints that explore the artist’s autobiography, as well as issues of identity within the African diaspora. Referencing both W.E.B. Du Bois’ concept of double consciousness and Franz Fanon’s theory of diasporic cultural confusions caused by colonialism, Smith alludes to fences, borders, and barriers to conceal and alter his subjects and landscapes. Smith’s practice celebrates the rich and complex histories of the post-colonial Caribbean and its people. Memory, migration and home are central to Smith’s work, which probes questions of hybrid identities between worlds old and new. Smith’s layered picotage is often patterned in the style of Caribbean breeze block fences and modernist architectural elements that function as veils, meant both to obscure and to protect Smith’s subjects from external gaze. While photography typically functions as a way in which to reveal and share information, Smith’s picotage has a concealing and purposefully perplexing effect. Forcing these nuanced diasporic histories into a singular picture plane, Smith encourages layers of unease within these outwardly jovial portraits. Picotage serves as an access point as Smith interrogates which elements of identity are allowed to pass through the complexities of borders and migration.

​​Jack Shainman Gallery has been dedicated from its inception to championing artists who have achieved mastery of their creative disciplines and are among the most compelling and influential contributors to culture today. Over the past four decades the gallery has earned a reputation for introducing international artists to American audiences and developing young and mid-career artists, who have gone on to gain worldwide acclaim. 

Public Art Fund Talks, organized in collaboration with The Cooper Union, connect compelling contemporary artists to a broad public by establishing a dialogue about artistic practices and public art. The Talks series features internationally renowned artists who offer insights into artmaking and its personal, social, and cultural contexts. The core values of creative expression and democratic access to culture and learning shared by both Public Art Fund and The Cooper Union are embodied in this ongoing collaboration. In the spirit of accessibility to the broadest and most diverse public, the Talks are offered free of charge.