Galerie ISA is delighted to present Tripper, the first solo exhibition in India by the British artist, David Brian Smith. Another first for Smith is the title of the show.
He has never before used a single word for an exhibition and explains that he ‘likes the idea of doing so’, for two reasons: the first being that he began preparing for the show by dividing the paintings he was making according to different countries or places he had always wanted to see. Each painting took inspiration from Smith’s imaginings of the landscapes or scenes there – even though the artist did not actually travel to visit the respective places themselves. Rather – like Henri Rousseau with his jungle paintings, Smith went on an imaginary – or we might say now, a ‘virtual’ journey. The genesis for this process was born out of what Smith describes as ‘a longing to explore.’ So the artist undertook a trip (of sorts), but also, – and this brings us to the second reason why Smith likes this one word title – the term ‘tripper’ is significant for Smith when explaining his work to someone unfamiliar with his paintings.
The artist often describes his practice as being composed of ‘large trippy landscapes’. Smith enjoys this double meaning. In British slang, an excursionist is described as a ‘tripper’, but it is also the term used to describe someone under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug, such as LSD.