Anj Smith: Phosphor on the Palms, Hauser & Wirth

Anj Smith has been preparing for this Hauser & Wirth exhibition for three years, with a spectacular series of new paintings that are like nothing you've ever seen before.

Anj Smith paintings & art

The British artist earned her stripes at Goldsmiths and the Slade with her surreal and wonderful paintings that are painstakingly detailed and intensely personal. They could be the descendants of Frida Kahlo's work, where similarly dreamlike figures emerge from the canvas. Moving between death, desire, sexuality and language, Smith has created her own language in painting that is causing quite a stir.

Highlights at Hauser & Wirth gallery London

This Hauser & Wirth exhibition turns traditional portraits, landscapes and still lives on their head, in a world where all these genres exist at once. Figures are represented by arrangement of objects, where a broken headphone, cigarette butt and blue pompoms are actually a portrait. These paintings are dense with symbolic meaning that draw on history, psychology, nature and fashion for inspiration. Branches and wilting petals weave their way through Smith's aesthetic which could be a crown of thorns or bright jewellery. 

Look out for Cammo (2015), where a sinister androgynous figure with a protruding Adam's apple and lip-gloss glares out from behind tinted aviators. We also love Risings Around the Moon (2015) and the spotlighted Alexander McQueen's couture jacket which could be a piece of armour or a flamboyant costume. 

From red-eyed rodents to wriggling geckos and clambering monkeys, Anj Smith is on a mission to prove that painting is far from dead.