Gordon Smith's works in the late 1960's and early 1970's show a shift in expression. The prints and paintings of this time are rooted in geometric abstraction. These works are formalist. They move away from splashes of colour and blending of paint to highly organized compositions that rely on relationships of colour and questions of perspective achieved through crisp lines rather than gestures of brushwork. Blue Twist is an excellent example of this and was the basis for one of the well known screen prints from this era.