Lucien Smith (B.1989)

Breakout artist Lucien Smith turns abstract painting on its head in his innovative Rain Paintings series of which 7th Heaven 5 is a preeminent example. In order to create this series, Smith retreated to the Hudson Valley and utilized nature has his muse, also evident in the artist's solo show entitled "Nature is My Church" at Salon 94 in 2013. Smith melds the spontaneous with the purposeful creation of abstraction by filling a fire extinguisher with water and paint in order to form a rhythmic release of paint onto unprimed canvas, as if capturing rain falling mid-storm. "[The Rain Painting] plays into this idea of relationships--relationships between people and relationships between objects... The Rain Paintings in my head serve as backdrops for situations between people and/or objects, very much like backdrops in a play. They become activated when something is placed in front of them," (L. Smith, quoted in A. Simpson, "Rising Artist Lucien Smith is Making it Rain," in Bullett, 27 September 2012). With his relatively young career gaining a vast amount of support since his graduate show at Cooper Union in 2011, Lucien Smith stands out as one of the most illustrious newcomers to the art world.