"Cocker," 2015, oil on canvas, 24" X 18"

Program

BFA 88 Illustration

Aaron Smith’s impasto portraits of Victorian gentlemen reflect a giddy ambivalence to nostalgia. Woozy colors and aggressive surfaces foil the stoic subject while bringing to mind the plumage of exotic birds of paradise. Associate chair of ArtCenter’s Illustration Department, Smith has presented over a dozen solo exhibitions in galleries in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. His paintings have been exhibited at the Laguna Art Museum, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Torrance Art Museum, ArtCenter’s Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery, Rutgers University’s Paul Robeson Galleries and Frye Art Museum. He was the first artist in residence at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Clients include Cole Haan, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, “Los Angeles Times Magazine,” New Line Cinema, “The New Yorker,” the Tom of Finland Foundation and United Artists. He has received awards from American Illustration, New American Paintings and the New York Society of Illustrators.