Michael Smither: Here & Now

In these uncertain times it is a gift when some things stay the same. Ever since his first exhibition in Auckland almost exactly 60 years ago, Michael Smither has confronted his viewers with surprises, sometimes shocks, always a search and scrutiny of his singular way of looking at the world.

True to his best form, he has done it again with Here and Now, this exhibition of 10 paintings. “These are the paintings of my old age,” says Smither. “I think now I have truly earned my name: Smither; it means an ordinary working man.”

Here is no sense of fade or jade. Now Smither is offering viewers a visual variation on blue — sea green blue in a long line along the ocean edge, ultramarine blue sliding up to a lighter blue horizon, phthalo blue, azure blue, blues than appear only at dawn, or dusk or noonday. His forms of Coromandel hills and headlands with their long slow dips and dives that sing of Smither’s musical appreciation of the land will be familiar to those who have journeyed on the long creative drive with the artist. His handling of the mix of alkyds and oils he works in is deft, defining and assertive.

Trish Gribben 2021