Lapis Editions Chandlerism #172 by Alexis Smith
I collect everywhere I go, and I like to work with everyday life forms as opposed to high-art forms...Also, there is often an emotional poignancy to my work. It's uncynical. It's very of the world.
- Alexis Smith
Los Angeles artist Alexis Smith is known for her collages and gallery installations using found objects and imagery combined with epigrammatic texts. Starting in 1978, Smith collected Raymond Chandler’s colorful metaphors and used them to create Chandlerisms, a series of witty and bittersweet collages. Chandlerism #172 is one of the celebrated works based on the hardboiled mystery writer’s turns of phrase.
She handed me the glass. Bubbles rose in it like false hopes.
“To all the dumb dreams that never happen.”
The work is poignant in the irony of Marilyn Monroe’s life. Alexis Smith’s art is a product of Southern California, of Hollywood, and of living among the illusions that exist in Los Angeles. Illusions that eventually waft into the atmosphere and on into popular culture.
Alexis Smith (1949 - 2024) earned her art degree at the University of California at Irvine, studying with Vija Celmins and Robert Irwin. Her art has been exhibited at major museums including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum; the Brooklyn Museum; the Walker Art Center; Centre Georges Pompidou and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Smith's collages, gallery installations, and large scale public works are in the permanent collections of numerous arts institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The J. Paul Getty Museum; The High Museum of Art; The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA); Santa Barbara Museum of Art; UCLA Hammer Museum and the Walker Art Center. Smith passed away on January 2, 2024.