Barry Ross Smith is a talented artist that seeks beauty in mediocrity. It is the ability to see a tension in what seems to be mundane which gives the work its particular visual tension. The Ocean series here represents many people, different from each other, that come to the beach.
The beauty of the current moment. The perfection of the imperfection. We see these children getting ready to face the world, and we see people returning after changing so much from facing the harsh current of the sea. We see well-seasoned 'players' from the sea, and many of them relax on the shore as they have long finished their journey. It's time for all the young ones to face theirs.
As we sit and watch over the horizon and smile as we pass through the storm and thinking that they'll be able to do the same.
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The water gives the scene its organizing space
Figures and familiar objects take on a different relationship when placed against the sea. Compare their scale with the surrounding expanse and the direction in which the composition leads the eye. The work can invite a narrative response without requiring every scene to be treated as a record of an actual event.
Leave room for more than one reading of the sea
The commentary above interprets the shore as a metaphor for different stages of life. That is one response to the work, rather than a statement of every figure’s identity or the artist’s intentions. A closer look can begin more simply with spacing, posture and the balance between occupied areas and open water.
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About the artist
Barry Ross Smith is an artist based in Auckland, New Zealand. His work explores the tension between people’s exploitation and conservation of the environment, a theme that runs through his beach scenes. In 2023 Samsung New Zealand commissioned him to make a series of artworks for its Samsung Studios to launch the Galaxy S23 Ultra: he photographed close-ups of brushwork, broken bristles and paint texture with the phone’s camera and combined them into composite pictures, including Beachlife, The Edge of the World and The Arrival.
Sources: Samsung New Zealand, April 2023: The art of Barry Ross Smith
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