Lance L. Smith
When I’m With You (Dayton), 2017
Oil on canvas
Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art Collection
Gift of the artist, In Memory of Angela C. Smith
2017.17.001

These works were monumental in understanding how to equally express feelings of loss without forsaking or exploiting the sacredness of my connection with those who came before me.

This process revealed that the investigation of one’s past through image or memento is not just an act of sentimentality but a retracing of one's core to unearth messages of what has come before and what may come later.

Attentive to the fluidity of memory and representation, Las Vegas artist Lance Smith uses drawing, painting, and performance to highlight the profound reality of marginalized experiences. When I’m with You (Dayton) is one of a series of paintings created in memory of the artist’s mother, Angela. Smith paints her from the perspective of a child being held against her shoulder, using a single material object—her earring—as a central reference point. (DKS)

Item Description:
An oil painting of a Black figure with closed eyes who turns away from the viewer. The image is tightly cropped so that we see only the side of the figure’s face and part of a large hoop-shaped earring that hangs behind a curtain of their hair.