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DUN 12 | Arts & Entertainment TOGETHER WE THRIVE. Connection is key to a longer and more vibrant life, and powers everything WE do at The Piedmont at Buckhead. It’s like being part of a super supportive family of waiters, chefs, housekeepers, ZEST® activity coaches, care & wellness teams, and even a bunch of really friendly and fun neighbors, all helping you thrive. This is what “we’re in this together” is all about. Experience the Power of WE at The Piedmont. Lunch Q Learn Thursday, March 11 th • ll:30am Enjoy a socially-distanced lunch and learn more about the engaging, maintenance-free lifestyle and the supportive services & safeguards offered. To RSVP for this small group event, call 404.381.1743. THE PIEDMONT A T BUCKHEAD CARF-ACCREDITED INDEPENDENT & ASSISTED LIVING RESIDENCES 650 Phipps Boulevard NE • Atlanta, GA www.ThePiedmontatBuckhead.com • 404*381.1743 ASK ABOUT OUR EXCEPTIONAL SAVINGS SPECIAL! AN SRG SENIOR LIVING COMMUNITY EQUAL HOUSING OPPORTUNITY 5 % Facebook.com/TheReporterNewspapers ■ twitter.com/Reporter_News Beautiful Chaos The collage works of artist Anderson Smith provoke and empower ISADORA PENNINGTON Anderson Smith in his studio space at Buckhead Art & Co. in Buckhead Village. BY ISADORA PENNINGTON At the intersection of art and advertisement, the collage works of artist Anderson Smith embrace sexuality and provoke the viewer’s ideas of fashion, luxury brands, ad vertising, and the human form. A fashion and product photographer by trade, Smith is well acquainted with commercial brands that often utilize sexuality and the female form to sell their goods. Inundated by advertisements in fashion magazines and in spired by a love for the narrative of classic cinema, he has developed a body of mixed media work that has captured the attention of celebrities and earned him representa tion at several local galleries. One piece on display features words cut out from magazines that command and em power their audience. “People love whatever you do, own your content. Look at me now boss,” it says. Surrounding these words are an array of body parts. An oversized wom an’s face with eyes covered by metal sits atop a seated nude figure. Four legs sprout be neath the body, each sporting high heels. Peeking out behind the head is a portion of the Statue of Liberty’s green crown. “It’s beautiful chaos,” Smith says when asked what inspires his work. “There is chaos in beauty and there is beauty in chaos. And that’s the world we live in.” His collages em body a degree of controlled wildness in the way they incorporate images that were in tended to depict refined culture and style. Smith’s pieces are composed not just of paper, but also acrylic paint, spray paint, pigments, resin, and gel mediums. Another piece laying nearby features a young Michael Jackson peeking out from in side a denim pocket while a nude woman’s figure opposite appears to be gazing up at the scene. The piece is mostly dark with splashes of color that shine through. Across the image are a variety of spray painted Louis Vuitton logos. “I was really never a safe photographer and I’m really not a safe artist,” Smith ex plains. ‘If you look at fashion labels like Louis Vuitton there is a lot of provocation in their brand and how they display their products.” He says his goal is to spark conversation for his audience and asserts that it is not for him to interpret his art, rather for his viewers to render a judgment about what the mes sage might be. His works embrace the looseness of sexuality in European art and media while touching on the consumable quality of nudity and how it is used in fashion and marketing. These pieces bring to the forefront elements that are often intended to be used subtly. By combining different figures and blocking out body parts like eyes or ex aggerating certain sexualized features, he asks the viewer to consider a deeper message behind the characters put forth in fashion and advertising. While the composition of many of Smith’s collages may at first look appear to be ar ranged at random, his creative process is actually much more methodical. “It’s very in tentional, very methodical. It’s like putting together a puzzle. It can start with just one image, and that image just starts the whole idea,” he says. Today, Smith can often be found working in the Buckhead Art & Company Studio in Buckhead Village. He has been represented by Buckhead Art & Company for several years, and says it feels like he found a home there with owner Katie Jones. Behind the plate glass windows and in the shadow of a multitude of works by other renowned art ists, Smith diligently works on his compositions. Surrounded by stacks of magazines, buckets of paint, blades and brushes, he creates his cheeky and provocative collages.
