Night in America - Maus Contemporary

LET THEM FALL is constructed of canvas, wood, oil paint and felt. I paused to make this painting in response to the group acts of pulling down confederate and colonial statues. It seemed surreal to witness the swift brevity of this act taking place throughout the United States and abroad. I typically reflect upon parallel narratives between our collective consciousness and those nested within the histories of art, particularly abstraction. LET THEM FALL explores the nuances of minimalist gesture while harnessing the sense of gravity and swiftness witnessed in the fall of oppressive monuments. By politicizing abstraction in this way, there is a parallel agenda at play. Perhaps, with more to come, these types of visual disjuncture reflect an aesthetic imbued with objectives to decolonize western abstraction.

- Leslie Smith III, September 2020