Editor’s note: This is the final story in a series of essays written by University of Central Missouri students about the work of a graduating art major’s senior show.

By VICTORIA MENDEZ

Jordan Smith has been drawing since he was about 5 years old. However, this senior at the University of Central Missouri did not think about making painting his major until his junior year in college.

Smith chose this major because he felt he would not be happy if he settled for something that seemed safe. When Smith was younger he spent hours on drawings. He mostly spent his time drawing characters from different video games, comic books and cartoons. In high school, Smith dabbled with watercolors, oils and acrylics. Although he was very much an artist growing up, he did not think about pursuing art because he was unsure of the possibilities. Once Smith became interested in fine art, he picked up any resource that could teach him more about art history, theory and design principles.

When you first look at Smith’s work, you will see several canvases featuring different hats of various shapes, sizes and colors. The hats varied from knit hats to baseball hats to fedora hats. The texture of each canvas is different. Some of the hats are layered with vivid colors such as reds, yellows, blues and purples. Other hats are not layered with paint as much. One canvas that had a pink knit hat on it was layered with different color paint and then scratched/etched down. This additive/subtractive method was very interesting to see.

Smith showed me his sketchbook filled with ink and brush drawings of different shapes and styles of lines. Very intriguing. I watched Smith do an ink drawing. Depending on the type of line or shape he was doing, his hand held the brush differently. There truly is an art to the way one paints or draws. Smith’s hand was very steady when drawing thin lines.

I asked him where all these abstract lines and shapes come from. “I don’t usually know where my paintings are going, I just do them,” Smith said. He said he is very interested in shape, color and line. This is why he did a series of different hats because it gave him a variety of shape, color and line. Smith said not knowing where your work is going is sort of exciting and fun.

He had a picture of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants pinned up on the wall in his studio. I asked him if that had anything to do with one of his paintings, which I thought looked like a honeycomb. He had been inspired by the picture. I told Smith I thought it looked like a honeycomb, and he told me he likes when people bring their “baggage” to his paintings. “While painting,” Smith said, “it has to be for you. You have to paint for yourself, to make yourself happy not anyone else. But if people happen to like it, that’s great.”

Painting is an escape for Smith. There are no rules while painting and that is why he enjoys it so much. One of his influences is Steve DiBenedetto, whose work is abstract and uses a lot of color. There is something puzzling in DiBenedetto’s work that makes the mind want to put together a picture but cannot quite put it together, much like Smith’s work. A second influence of Smith’s is Brenda Goodman, an abstract artist who has been painting since the 1970s. Her abstract portraits represent herself in a negative way. Smith said Goodman’s art gave him confidence in his own work.

Smith said if he had to label his style of art he would consider himself a non-representational artist because not all of his work has a specific meaning behind it. He tries to avoid being categorized since not all of his work is non-representational and not all of his work is representational. Speaking and interviewing with Smith taught me that most of the time a non-representational piece is for the benefit of the artist, and those pieces of artwork are just as important as representational pieces. Smith plans to make a website for all of his artwork and continues to experiment with shape, color and line.

Victoria Mendez is a UCM student pursuing a degree in studio art with a minor in business administration. She wrote this essay as part of Beyond Beauty, a class on art and writing at UCM.