Rebecca Gray Smith | Alphabet & Numbers: The Pandemic Prints

Opening Reception: Saturday May 8, 2-5 pm | RSVP required. RSVP link will be available on the gallery home page.

Bert Green Fine Art is pleased to present our third solo show by Chicago-based printmaker Rebecca Gray Smith.

Rebecca Gray Smith explores the presence of death in all human endeavors, using traditional signifiers of mortality such as the skeleton as a primary actor and subject. Each letter or number plate corresponds to a specific fatal activity or malady, highlighting the act of existence as a high risk activity fraught with peril. The artist examines how the Medusa of Death stalks us all, in all walks of life, while at the same time looking at the capriciousness inherent in the present: the absurdities, cruelties, and horrors of modern existence. The history of printmaking is elemental in the helix of human civilization, a taproot reaching back to the prehistoric dawn of mankind.

The "Alphabet and Numbers" is a series of intaglio etchings: upper case letters A-Z with two repeated letters B and C, lower case A-Z plus title plate and end plate, and numbers 0-9 plus a title plate for a total of 67 plates. The images in the uppercase Alphabet series were created over a 25-year period starting around 1989, originally intended as a response to the AIDS crisis. The uppercase edition was printed in 2014, the numbers 2016, and the lower case in 2020. Also included in the exhibition are 2 stone lithograph self-portraits, and a human-scale sculpture.

All gallery events are free and open to the public. Additional information found at the gallery website at http://bgfa.us. Please forward to any interested parties.

Gallery Hours

Friday 12-4 pm or by appointment Monday - Saturday. Free Admission.

Face coverings required to enter the building.

Image: Rebecca Gray Smith, Alphabyte - Title Plate, Intaglio Print on Somerset Satin Paper, Edition of 5, 3 APs, Image 8 x 6” Paper 11 x 10”, 2020