SMIIILLLLEEEE

This composition by the British artist Rachel Jones is one of a number of workrs, all titled SMIIILLLLEEEE, , which debuted in an exhibition of the same name at Thaddaeus Ropac, Lonon, in December 2021. Like the others in the group, it is monumental in size, meeasuring over eight feet tall, and was made without a brush. Committed to probing the possibilities of her medium (“it’s a matter of being able to explore
different ways of making paintings”), the artist applies pigment in a way that is closer to drawing than to traditional painting methods. Her use of oil stick, a combination of paint and wax in the form of a cylindrical bar—a material that can be “picked up and used immediately”—accentuates her intuitive approach to creating her work.