An exhibit featuring artists Seth Clark and Jeffery Smith

Seth Clark

Nearly everything hangs by a thread in Seth Clark's artwork. Two-dimensional paintings are created primarily with collaged paper and feature architecture on the threshold of ruin. In his sculptural artwork, scrap wood and other aged materials provide the viewer with a brief glimpse into the moment before the structural collapse. Clark continues to push the limits of size, material, and concept in his artwork.

Clark collages with paper because it reflects the fragmented and complex tactility of decay. The materials call attention to the rising instability of the American landscape. Once he achieves a dimensional foundation, various media like charcoal, pastel, and graphite bring definition and depth to these raw materials. The processes of collage and drawing alternate between themselves. The two mediums seamlessly blend. It often takes months for the structure to appear out of the many scraps of paper and scribble. It takes time for “something very energized and present to escape out of a slow history of abandonment.”

Clark’s sculptural artwork further links concept and process. Wood, polystyrene, and plastic are arranged and aged to emphasize a specific part of the structure. Clark’s 2- and 3-dimensional artwork illustrates the extent to which a small disturbance in a system can disrupt the entirety. While his sculptural artwork provides a closer look into a weathering section, Clark's collaged artwork provides the narrative. As both are intertwined, he transitions into the structures with swift momentum. Perhaps even more process-based than sourced from a compilation of historical imagery, Clark's current artwork captures our transient movement through this architectural landscape.

Clark (b.1986) grew up in Seekonk, Massachusetts. He received his BFA in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2008. Shortly after graduating Clark moved to Pittsburgh and began a series of collage works that captured specific abandoned houses in Detroit. Utilizing his ambitious paper layering process to focus on deteriorating architecture, Clark exhibits extensively in Pennsylvania. The Carnegie Museum of Art, the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, the Pittsburgh Biennial at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and the Butler Museum of Art have all exhibited Clark's artwork. He has received three Design Excellence Awards from the AIGA Pittsburgh, Best in Show at Three Rivers Arts Festival, the Irene Pasinski Sailer Award, the Irving B. Gruber Award, and was a Flight School Fellow. In 2015, Clark was named Emerging Artist of the Year by the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. He then began experimenting with alternative materials to create three-dimensional artwork. As a resident artist at The Pittsburgh Glass Center, Clark worked collaboratively with artist Jason Forck to create Dissolution, a series of artwork integrating glass into their shared interest in decaying architectural forms. Publications Creative Nonfiction, New American Paintings, and DASH have featured his artwork, as well as National blogs such as The Jealous Curator, Booom!, and Juxtapose. In 2017, he taught students the principles of art and design as a resident artist at the United World College of South East Asia, Singapore. His artwork has also been exhibited at Art on Paper during The Armory in New York City and Aqua Art Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach. 

 View images from Seth Clark's 2020 BoxHeart Exhibition, Transience.

Jeffery Smith

Jeffrey Smith has had a career in the beauty industry for over 50 years. Raised in a small rural town in Ohio, Smith came to Pittsburgh in the 1970's to pursue cosmetology. After attending Pittsburgh Beauty Academy, he worked for many years with Leslie & Co. before embarking on his own. In 2002 he became a pioneer of Lawrenceville, opening his boutique salon when the area’s future was anything but certain. Smith was determined to be a part of something larger than himself, and hoped that his personal success would aid in the neighborhood’s progress and development. A decade later, once Lawrenceville became a flourishing cultural hub, Smith decided it was time for another grand move and brought his salon to Highland Park. 

In 2012, Smith embarked upon an exploration of his creativity and uncovered a passion for jewelry design. Created with a variety of unconventional materials including iced metals, natural stones, and glass, Smith's complementary and custom jewelry pieces were designed for wearers to combine and create personal style. Today beading is expressed differently from person to person. Balancing the shape, texture, and color of his materials, Smith reveres beadwork as a fine art form. Fellow artists and art instructors Jerry Florida, Bob Eppendorf, Dana Coury, Lillian Wright, Judy Juselius, Angel Moore Boyle, and Rebecca Mapes are an important part of his creative journey modernizing the beading craft. Smith's intricate, sculptural designs are sewn into found leather and suede skins. His invented patterns dance on shimmering surfaces exemplifying his immense talent of all things beauty. The movement is a conversation between the materials, how they are placed, and the space in between.

 We're excited to welcome Jeffrey Smith to our gallery! His artwork is in our exhibit "Chuffed Up!", November 8, 2023 - January 19, 2024.