Aza Smith
Artist Statement
Coming this summer to a gallery show near you: comes a roller-coaster coastline of cheap thrills and cheaper spills born from the seedy underbelly of North Texas. He was a contrarian on the run from the dystopian nightmare of Richardson, TX, before he caught his big break at the Booker T. Washington School of Arts in the big city. There he learned the arcane craft of sewing, drawing and painting. He ignored the warnings, he scoffed the snobs, he scavenged the wastes and chose to create soft-sculpture monstrosities out to capture and enslave the hearts and minds of his audience. His twisted imagination immortalized in ink and watercolors, allegorical portraits back from the dead, the defilement of tradition and contemporary temples alike. He thought they were his friends. He thought they were his muse. He thought they would ensure him a place in fine-art history. He was wrong. Dead Wrong.
CHAOS8!: The Return of Aza Smith.
This time... it ain’t personal.
Rated X.
Biography
Aza Smith began taking professional art courses since 2008, having passed the audition into Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. After graduation in 2013, he applied to El Centro College in Dallas, TX where he received an Associate in Arts in 2017, and in 2017 had received a Bachelors in Studio Arts – Emphasis in Sculpture in Texas A&M University — Commerce. He focuses primarily on soft-sculptures and multi-media portraits. Believing that fine art can be used as a story-telling medium, he enjoys creating characters that fill roles that entertain an audience fed a steady diet of contemporary blandness. Whether they’re rag dolls made from found objects sewn by hand or elaborate illustrations made from ink and oil, Aza has a particular love for tropes, cliches and pure fiction, works of art made to embody abstract ideas and archetypes found in art history and pop culture.
Artist Statement
Coming this summer to a gallery show near you: comes a roller-coaster coastline of cheap thrills and cheaper spills born from the seedy underbelly of North Texas. He was a contrarian on the run from the dystopian nightmare of Richardson, TX, before he caught his big break at the Booker T. Washington School of Arts in the big city. There he learned the arcane craft of sewing, drawing and painting. He ignored the warnings, he scoffed the snobs, he scavenged the wastes and chose to create soft-sculpture monstrosities out to capture and enslave the hearts and minds of his audience. His twisted imagination immortalized in ink and watercolors, allegorical portraits back from the dead, the defilement of tradition and contemporary temples alike. He thought they were his friends. He thought they were his muse. He thought they would ensure him a place in fine-art history. He was wrong. Dead Wrong.
CHAOS8!: The Return of Aza Smith.
This time... it ain’t personal.
Rated X.
Biography
Aza Smith began taking professional art courses since 2008, having passed the audition into Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. After graduation in 2013, he applied to El Centro College in Dallas, TX where he received an Associate in Arts in 2017, and in 2017 had received a Bachelors in Studio Arts – Emphasis in Sculpture in Texas A&M University — Commerce. He focuses primarily on soft-sculptures and multi-media portraits. Believing that fine art can be used as a story-telling medium, he enjoys creating characters that fill roles that entertain an audience fed a steady diet of contemporary blandness. Whether they’re rag dolls made from found objects sewn by hand or elaborate illustrations made from ink and oil, Aza has a particular love for tropes, cliches and pure fiction, works of art made to embody abstract ideas and archetypes found in art history and pop culture.
