If one were to describe photographer Allison V. Smith's work with just one word, it would be: multifarious ... or, variegated. Vivid, nuanced, resplendent, complicated. Conspicuous, but never ostentatious, never distractingly so.
In other words, there's simply no way to condense a multifaceted artist of Smith's breadth to a single descriptor. An attempt to do so is laughable. She manages to see occasion in quotidian, painting it more brightly and more crisply with a camera than if one were standing immediately among her very subjects. From the steps of a staircase to glass marbles in a jar on a table, or a lonely watering can, Smith's innate geometry, her sense of depth makes interesting and puzzling what the rest of us might have so cavalierly overlooked in the petty machinations of daily life.
One of the highlights of East Dallas Gallery Day, Smith's zine release party at Barry Whistler Gallery featured work from her travels in Maine, which is the subject of her newest zine, VI, available for purchase through the gallery for $20. While much of her work is viewable online - and gorgeous, still - walking past a large print on a gallery wall falls just short of a spiritual experience. Time and space be damned, she challenges the viewer to remember that Barry Whistler Gallery's north wall does not, in fact, abut the Atlantic.
As you can see below, through Smith's lens, the world is all to real, too reachable.
