“All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful, but the beauty is grim.” (Morley)
What is engaging about Joel Smith’s work is that there’s an immediacy of vision (you’d be unsurprised to learn he captured many of these images while out cycling) and also a joy in unexpected scenes. Though not all the images are of, and in, Niagara, there’s also this elevation of the local to a more engaging level. The discarded and ruined shopping carts drowned in the running water are something that is so ubiquitous that most of us don’t even see them when we pass them, but here, through Smith’s lens, they become mysterious, a bit haunted, and starting points for a story about this spectacle that the artist presents for us.
Whether it’s the bright blue sky with a smattering of clouds (bright as moving air / blue as city dawn / happy as light / released by day / over the city’s new buildings) behind the arched neck of a street lamp, or a rare vertical piece that balances a solid orange structure with a dark deep blue sky that looks like it might have been hammered into place, or a plug in a brick wall that is framed by Smith so as to show the often ignored aesthetic touches all around us, these are “snapshots” that are lovely in their simplicity.
Another scene of the downtown that makes a street many of us walk down every day appear differently than we think of it – if we even think of James Street at all, as we traverse it on the way to our destinations also gives us pause. Like the close up of the concrete sidewalk with its echoed grooves in an ordered aesthetic we trod blithely and repeatedly, these scenes are doubly beautiful as they are unexpected. I can talk about Brutalism, and Modernism or other isms, but vision trumps words here, and are more seductive. Like the blue sky, delicate urban touches and unexpected scenes, you just need to look at them and be quiet.
While there’s a formal strength to the scenes here (architecture becomes space and shape and weight) there’s also a sentiment (not sentimentality) to the world Smith shows here. The aforementioned shot of James Street, but also urban spaces and more natural spaces that have a sense of whimsy (the tenacious sprout of green thriving in the middle of a tarry street), or that we might have just stumbled upon them while out, and it’s a rare moment of serenity worth preserving. The tangled deadwood on the shore as the sun sets on the water is one of these. Landscape that invites us in, and makes us want to be in that place, is always fine.
There is a highlighting of the familiar in Joel Smith’s photographs that reminds that there are interesting and beautiful scenes and settings around us, if we simply stop and pay attention.
———————————————
Joel Smith is a photographer who has worked in both digital and traditional formats, for over two decades, and his work is informed by the world around him, from his cycling to his family to his work and life in the downtown of St. Catharines. More of his work can be seen on Instagram.
The exhibition of work that can be seen at the Mahtay Cafe & Lounge (241 St. Paul Street) is his first solo show of his photographic works, and just a small sampling of his larger “images” of the city and environment around and within it.
This is also the site – in the event room – for the continuing Rodman Hall 5 X 2 Visual Conversations, which happens every second Tuesday of September, October and November. Smith will be talking about his work at the first instalment in September, and all are welcome.