Lance L. Smith (they/them)
Interés de acción (raíz)
2020
Mixed media on amate
Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art Collection
2021.01.001

“There are kinds of hands you can carry on your person: your two hands, your working hands, and then your other hands that can go any way. The hands that you use to ensure your safety. There are your parents or your grandparents, those hands that do things, the hands that brush your hair, the hands that wipe the snot off your nose, the hand that will sometimes knot up and knock its way out. It’s all about revealing and concealing the versions of your hands. That herb — that is what happens when you are preparing the grass into these things. It’s hinting at that process. There are varying beliefs about your hands. Your hands — even in certain mythologies, or even just in the everyday — what are they doing? As an artist, acknowledging your hands: they’re making movements toward, sometimes, things that are great and sometimes things that are not great. I was trying to find a way to acknowledge when those hands are used as a tool for action.”

Lance L. Smith in conversation with D.K. Sole (Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, 2020)

Purchased with contributions to the Las Vegas Womxn of Color Acquisition Fund.

Image description:
A realistic black and white drawing of two open hands with an irregular vegetable-like object hovering between them. The surface of the paper is softly mottled with areas of light brown.
(written by Andrea Noonoo)