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Photograph by Byron Kerman
Mark Twain, by Zack Smithey
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Photograph by Byron Kerman
Mark Twain, by Zack Smithey
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Photograph by Byron Kerman
Mark Twain, by Zack Smithey
Zack Smithey is obsessed. He is not obsessed with Mark Twain, but you'd be forgiven for thinking so. The young painter has made some 130 portraits of the great satirist of Hannibal.
Each portrait is an experiment with a different style. Twain's face melts, or has been stripped of its skin and muscle, or breaks down into a maze of squiggles, or has cosmic fire exploding from its eye sockets. It is a parade of techniques, as limitless as the artist's mind will allow. Smithey's obsession is the infinite variety of artistic techniques he can dream up. Twain is simply his medium.
Indeed, Smithey has done so many paintings of Twain, that to see the author’s famous whiskered face and cumulus fluff of hair repeated again and again is to drop into a weird fugue state somehow anchored by the icon.
What, exactly, are we supposed to think about the painter’s compulsive return to the subject, our ultimate local boy made good. Is he toying with us Missourians? (And if so, wouldn’t the sardonic Twain approve?)
Smithey explains.
How long have you been painting images of Mark Twain?
Five years ago I did my first painting of Mark Twain as part of a series called Iconic Images. I did Twain, Twiggy, Einstein, Abe Lincoln, Dillinger... Twain was the most popular. Each time I’d make a new one, it’d sell and I’d make another one. Then it evolved into a series where each time I made it I did it in a different style, because I didn’t want to make the same painting over and over. I’ve always wanted to bring all my different styles into one series, and to make it cohesive I had to pick one single subject.
How many have you made now?
About 120, 130.
And you’re still making them?
Yes. I’m working on a really detailed one now, and thinking about making a limited-edition print series from it.
Do you see an end to making them?
No. As of right now, I see this series as one that could actually keep going for the rest of my life. But I am working on other projects at the same time. Every time I come up with a new style, I want to test it out with Mark Twain first.
Do you ever get bored painting Mark Twain again and again?
No. It’s kind of a relief knowing what the subject is going to be. I can now focus on how I’m going to do it. It doesn’t really get tiring.
Where has this work been shown so far?
The first show was at the Vino Gallery. Then there was a big show at the Missouri Athletic Club last April. Some are hanging at the restaurant my wife and I run, Miss Aimee B’s Tea Room in St. Charles.
One of the interesting things about this series is the Warhol-style effect of repetition. All these Twains, one after the other, can put the viewer in a kind of trance.
Yes. I’ve made the comparison to Warhol in that there’s the repetition, although we have different processes. This isn’t something that was a goal, but as I made a few dozen of them, it started to become like a brand. That image was becoming associated with me, kind of like when Warhol was calling out the branding of things with pop art and Campbell’s soup. People started posting Mark Twain things on my wall. Everything became Mark Twain. I kind of liked it. It was catching on. People like it. But I do it first and foremost because I like it.
When I think of Mark Twain, I think of Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, pithy sayings, his hair, and so on. But the sheer number of Mark Twain paintings you’ve made has a way of desensitizing me to the subject, making me more conscious of the idea of the image-making of celebrities.
That’s exactly what I’m going for. The figure has dissolved and you’re allowed to take in how it was made.
Have you read some of Mark Twain’s books?
It’s been a long time since we had to read it in middle school. But a few months ago, I watched The Adventures of Mark Twain, a 1980s claymation movie. It’s pretty amazing. Twain builds a time machine in this balloon craft and he wants to meet Halley’s Comet and go out with it. The characters from the books are in the story with him and they hitch a ride on his flying boat.
What do you really think of Twain?
I love his unapologetic comments on society. He has so many great quotations. I like his boldness. He tells it like it is. It’s comical the way I’m treating his image, but I think he would be cool with that.
To see images of more than 120 Mark Twain paintings by Zack Smithey, go here, or here. And say hello to the artist and check out a number of the Twain paintings in-person at the St. Louis World’s Fare festival in Forest Park, coming up in September.
