Emily Mae Smith

studio visit, brooklyn

interview by MAURIZIO CATTELAN
portrait by ALEX ANTITCH

 

MAURIZIO CATTELAN — How would you define yourself: two-dimensional or three-dimensional?

EMILY MAE SMITH — I think of my work as two-dimensional. They are paintings, and though they are concerned with the world, they are pictures that depend on how we see and understand images.

MAURIZIO CATTELAN — And what about you?

EMILY MAE SMITH — I am a painter.

MAURIZIO CATTELAN — How do you see things, really?

EMILY MAE SMITH — I often see a disconnect between the way I know / believe the world to be, and the way the world is presented to me. I often wonder whose subconscious desires and anxieties are being played out in the world. It gives me a disassociated alien perspective sometimes. I think that allows me to see new juxtapositions I can paint.

MAURIZIO CATTELAN…