Juxtapoz Magazine - Josh Smith: Destiny @ David Zwirner, Los Angeles

"David Zwirner is pleased to present Destiny, an exhibition of new paintings by Josh Smith, on view at the gallery's 606 N Western Avenue location in Los Angeles. This is Smith's first solo presentation in Los Angeles. For Destiny, Smith has made a series of paintings that continue his long-running dialogue with the grim reaper, a figure that has appeared in his work for years in countless guises."

"Smith uses the bikes almost like scaffolding. Wheels, frames, and spokes break up the surface and give him an excuse to push color and shape across the support. The reapers wear cloaks made from bold strokes of black, but also from sharp hits of high-tone green, violet, or electric orange. These paintings are built out of seemingly contradictory parts: loose but controlled, casual but deliberate, improvised yet tightly bound. Each canvas is a balancing act where lines threaten to collapse but never do."

Josh Smith's new paintings place the grim reaper on bicycles weaving through New York streets and past landmarks like the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. The reaper moves from a faceless cipher to a figure that sometimes meets the viewer's gaze, enmeshed in urban energy. Bicycles act as compositional scaffolding: wheels, frames, and spokes break surfaces and propel color across each canvas. Cloaks combine bold black strokes with high-tone greens, violets, and electric orange. The works balance looseness and control, improvisation and constraint, keeping marks in a charged state of flux while maintaining structural pressure.

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