ORIGIN cata/zine

In early 2021, Smith dreamt the birth of her great-grandfather, Reverend Edmund Oxley. This vision prompted Smith to begin ORIGIN, a series of collage-paintings which examine the self-replicating rhythms of art and human biology.

Smith dissects her own family albums, cutting apart photographs of her childhood and incorporating them into vibrantly colored paintings of female reproductive anatomy. Portraits of Smith’s ancestors emerge from psychedelic wombs, tracing the umbilical cord of her lineage through the folds and curves of the vaginal canal. Contemporary images of the artist herself morph into labia minora and majora, framing kaleidoscopic portals through which we see cycles of life passing over and over. In ORIGIN, the photographic art of mechanical reproduction becomes intertwined with the physical act of giving birth.

Much like Smith’s previous series The Black Woman Project, which celebrates the brilliant Black Women who make up her intellectual and cultural genealogy, ORIGIN pays homage to the power of the Black mother as a giver of life, the wellspring from whom history emerges.

Justine Kurland Studio presented ORIGIN, the first solo exhibition of work by Gwen Smith in New York City. November 13 – 23, 2021

Newspaperclub selected ORIGIN for their best 11 out of 2 million list

• 40 pages

• 7 x 10 inches

• 55 gsm newsprint

• printed in England