Phillip K. Smith: Bent Parallel

Phillip K Smith III’s monumental installation Bent Parallel envelopes viewers in immersive reflective light continuing the artist’s ongoing dialogue with color theory, optics, scale, and technology. Appearing as two intersecting, color-field walls, this hinge-like structure merges surfaces to engender a perceptual atmosphere that shifts and blends colored light. This installation creates a third, material-less, zero-thickness plane that mixes the adjacent colors and extends the physical bounds of the immediate space. The resulting environment appears simultaneously infinite and finite, while hues push and pull and saturate and dissolve the surroundings, encouraging us to focus on the interaction and movement of pure color.

Born in Los Angeles, California in 1972, Phillip K Smith III received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design before returning to the Southern California desert where he was raised. Smith has participated in the Artist-in-Residence Programs at Dartmouth College and the Palm Springs Art Museum. Building upon a foundation of the perceptual exploration of light, color, and space, Smith creates intensely physical and seemingly ephemeral sculptures. His large-scale, temporary installations include the internationally renowned Lucid Stead (2013) in Joshua Tree, California; and Reflection Field (2014) and Portals (2016) both of which debuted at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California. Smith has had solo exhibitions at Royale Projects : Contemporary in Los Angeles, Palm Springs Art Museum, Jaffe-Freide Gallery at Dartmouth College, and the University of La Verne. His works have been included in major group exhibitions at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, California and the University of California, Riverside. His monumental works are sited throughout California and beyond including Boston, Kansas City, Nashville, and Oklahoma City. Recently, he has been commissioned to create permanent, light-based works for the City of West Hollywood, California and the City of Bellevue, Washington. Next year, Smith will participate in Desert X 2017, an international contemporary art exhibition that will focus on environmental, social, and cultural conditions of the 21st century. The artist and his works have been featured in numerous online and print publications including Art in America, Architectural Digest, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Chris Van Ueffelen’s book 500 x Art In Public, and Henry M. Sayre’s textbook A World of Art.