S*an D. Henry-Smith
Reina Sugihara

June 29–August 4, 2023

Opening Reception
Thursday, June 29
6–8 PM

The question of when exactly a work is finished is an indefinite yet recurring one for most artists. Whether a composition needs more time, or has taken too much, in the confines of the mind or studio. “relics” is a two-person show at 47 Canal that pairs photographs by S*an D. Henry-Smith and paintings by Reina Sugihara, in a correlation of their durational methods and estimations. Both artists value looking, though not strictly as means to an end. Henry-Smith is also a poet of lucid description, and Sugihara is often moved to paint by sculptural impulses––both after sustained relationships with friends, sites, found objects. But processes are not so straightforward as motivations. Henry-Smith does not draft the images they want to make, nor does Sugihara paint the object she has long held. Both artists’ work materializes the search not so much for meaning but emotion. They begin with the personal and distill it into abstractions of peculiar empathy and memory, sometimes in opposing proximity.