Adam Parker Smith’s work is populated by subjects pulled from the fertile environment of my fears and longings, polluted with filth, obsessions, crushes, jealousy and grace, merely a reaction to his perception of life. In his work he toys with ideas of imperfection, humans flaws and magnifies them in his often grotesque puppetry.

“Through this combination, I establish psychological sites for disparate elements to congregate in environments that are simultaneously haunting, familiar and alien. These tragicomic installations are private, uncensored, darkly humored and most often involve the direct participation of the viewer.”

I ran into his work as I was walking in the pouring streets of New York City aimlessly heading downtown and catching up with a friend. We walked by the corner window on Broadway and 10th, which is always intriguingly curated by different exhibitors work. This time it was the Adam Parker Smith’s “Bold as Love” series, a project inspired by an execution scene in Ernest Hemingway’s, “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. It was created in collaboration with seven high school students through the Blue Sky Project which paired McHenry County teens with my project in an eight week residency program while providing space and materials. These heads on wooden pikes constructed from felt and pins form a landscape of imagined creatures, self portraits, individuals the teens and I are personally involved with and American icons including Mike Tyson, Anna Nicole Smith, and John F. Kennedy.

Bold As Love 2007 felt, pins, wood

On the Wings of Maybe 2007 vinyl, wood, felt, vintage wedding dresses 6' tall Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” this piece is a tribute to love, marriage and faith. Evoking sexual connotations with black stitched vinyl, and committed love sentiments through vintage wedding dresses, the sword fish emerges from the floor wearing a white dress that doubles as a violent splash. The dresses used in this piece were collected by family members over two years.