Nathaniel Smith

This body of work questions the creative achievements of well-known artists, such as Pablo Picasso, Edward Curtis, Paul Gauguin, among others. Their romanticized representations of landscapes, which have been weaponized to advance colonialism, orientalism, and othering with particularly negative effects on indigenous peoples in the Americas, Asia, and Africa. I want to offer a new perspective that challenges these renowned works' typical representations and reveals the ways in which they have historically supported harmful ideas by using reproduction and collage techniques to dismantle and repurpose them. Through this process, my goal is to initiate a critical discourse regarding the role of art in reinforcing or resisting established narratives, and to encourage a more nuanced consideration of art's place in our understanding of history.