THE GIFT AND THE WISH 

November 3 - December 9, 2023
Opening Friday, November 3rd 6–9pm

Sarah Brook Gallery is pleased to present The Gift and The Wish, an exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Los Angeles-based artist Natalie Smith in the gallery’s viewing room. Two works in atmospheric periwinkles, soft greens, airy blues and shining metallic silver feature an ascending and descending angel on Jacob’s Ladder—a mystical pathway depicted across Christian, Islamic and Jewish faiths as well as in William Blake’s Iconic work: Jacob’s Dream. A small painting features a mother and her child in the grotto after Rodin. The painting’s crimson monotone evokes the intensity and protection of a womb. Five drawings in chalk pastel feature short poems seen floating on the airy fibers of unryu paper. Letters emerge like wispy threads as if rendered in the clouds. Read from left to right, the poems whisper: There is No Unseeing, The Gift, There Is No Unknowing, The Wish, Love or Fear. The Gift and The Wish is a prayer from darkness towards light, confronting the cyclical nature of love and creation ongoing.

Natalie Smith (b. Chicago, IL) is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, CA. Her work deals with geometries, images, and forms that connect to these pre-patriarchal epistemologies to engage with eternal images and feelings. Recent solo exhibitions include Nothing Within or Without at Bad Water in Knoxville, TN and What Belongs To You Shall Come To You at Kate’s Little Angel in Los Angeles, CA.  Other recent exhibitions include Real Pain/Harkawik in Los Angeles and U’s in Calgary. In 2019 she was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. She received a BFA from the University of Illinois in 2008 and her MFA from the University of New Mexico in 2014.