“Portraits, Celestial Bodies, and Fairy Tales,” an exhibition of Kiki Smith’s prints from 1990 to the present, is at Mary Ryan Gallery through April 8. Smith, best known for her sculptures, told BOMB in 1994, “Everyone’s figured out all the technology, how to combine different kinds of material together—you don’t have to make anything up. You just have to pay attention to what’s discarded, or disregarded … I like looking, seeing everything that everybody already knows and using it. Or you start making things, and then they start explaining to you while you’re making them, telling you more and more what it is that you’re doing.”
Kiki Smith, Come Away from Her (After Lewis Carroll), 2003, aquatint, drypoint, etching, and sanding with watercolor additions, 50 1/2″ x 74″.
Free Fall, 1994, intaglio in one color with photogravure, etching, and drypoint on paper , 33 1/4″ x 42″.
My Blue Lake, 1995, photogravure, à la poupée inking and lithograph in colors, 43 3/4″ x 54 3/4″.
Red Cap, 2001, lithograph with hand colored pencil, 20 1/4″ x 28 1/8″.
Sueno, 1992, etching and aquatint in two colors on paper, 41 3/4″ x 77 1/2″.
In a Bower, 2015, color etching and aquatint with hand coloring, 33 3/4″ x 44 1/2″.
