Auxier Kline is pleased to present Doppleganger, a solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based artist Alexandra Smith, opening October 10th. Through tightly cropped compositions, Smith draws the viewer in, depicting moments where violence, fear, and anxiety oscillate between pleasure, tenderness, and desire. The artist draws reference from life and cinema, culling moments where these emotions are transmuted, while removing them from their contexts through methods of framing. 

Smith’s search for these dualities borders on an obsessive quest. Standing before these paintings we are asked to consider: What is the consequence of not being offered the whole? How does a viewer’s mind fill in the blanks? Where, if at all, does discomfort come into that interpretation? Smith’s work demands that we supply context and by doing so question our perceptiveness. 

Her attraction to ambiguity is not incidental but insistent:. By sourcing and reworking references from horror cinema, Smith pulls apart their meanings, allowing her paintings to both seduce and disturb. In doing so, she re-centers the power and monstrosity of the female figure, turning sites of fear into charged spaces of agency. 

As film writer Kier-La Janisse reflects in House of Psychotic Women: “I [find] myself unconsciously drawn to female characters who exhibited signs of behavior I had recognized in myself: repression, delusion, jealousy, paranoia, and hysteria.” Smith’s work inhabits this lineage, where intimacy and horror intertwine, and the female form becomes magnetic, elusive, and defiant. 

In Pinned, a hand holds down an arm resting on the ground within an undefined and expansive environment. A gradient of cadmium red to alizarin crimson fills the atmosphere, washing over the figures and drawing attention to the tactility of the skin, and the emotionally-heightened action. The image veils the thin line between innocence and violence, evoking Giallo horror: the lurid reds of Mario Bava, or the surrealist interiors of Dario Argento. We are made to wonder, are these figures acting as protagonists, antagonists, or both? 

Through paint handling, dramatic lighting, and color choice, Smith leans into ambiguity, leaving space for multiple interpretations. Influenced by techniques such as chiaroscuro and cinematic lighting, the intense contrast between light and shadow allows for subjects to fall into their surroundings. A limited palette further intensifies this method of veiling, revealing itself the longer you gaze: layers of glazing build richness, luminosity, and shadow. The seductive softness of fabrics, atmosphere, and skin butts up against the sharpness of fingernails, metal, and glass. 

In Pursuer, a figure travels down a concealed wooded path. The smooth surface of the painting is made dimensional through layers of glazing, and a permeating red hue envelops the woods. The soft orange glow from a light illuminates the upper-right side, spotlightting a figure. Back lit, you cannot discern their features. In homage to David Lynch’s eerily spotlit figures, this situation begs the question: am I following them, or am I being followed? 

INQUIRIES

Alexandra Smith (b. 1995, Watertown, NY) lives and works in New York City. Smith’s paintings investigate overlapping and precarious emotional and physical boundaries in relationships. She has been the recipient of an artist fellowship at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico. Smith exhibited in two-person exhibitions including Cold Shower with Auxier Kline in 2022, and Be a Body with Tchotchke in 2022. Smith has participated in group shows with: Essex Flowers, New York; Off-White Columns, New York; and Spring/Break. Her work has been featured in Art Plugged, Art Maze Mag, and TERRIBLE Magazine. She holds a BFA from Alfred University.