Patricia Smith

I refer to my drawings as maps, as they are attempts to define a place on paper. The places I am attempting to render exist within the fluid and mysterious regions of the mind. I use certain conventions of cartography and, in some cases, information transposed from actual city maps. The drawings evolve through a labor-intensive layering of minute details rendered in ink, watercolor, graphite and collaged elements.

The maps are not always anchored in external geography. In other works, I organize and analyze texts, and map their intersections with my own thoughts. From this data, images of structures emerge that resemble buildings, bodies or architectural plans. The texts housed within the structures open ever more subtle spaces, filled with double meanings, puns and absurdist humor. In their attempts to define territory, these maps reveal an ever-changing and labyrinthine mental landscape that perpetually eludes definition.