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Cedric Smith Biography
I've always painted for the fun of it. I never thought that one day I
could make a career out of it until I met an artist by the name of
William Tolliver. I used to cut his hair, but never knew he was an
artist. He invited me to his studio and when I got there I was blown
away. The sizes of his paintings and the colors he used were incredible.
He had his own gallery and he was self-taught. Once I saw that, it gave
me the jump-start I needed.
I started painting
all kinds of things without any focus, until one day while listening to
Public Enemy (a political rap group), I heard Chuck D. say "most of
our heroes don't appear on no stamps". That gave me a focus and I
started placing black images on postage stamps. I didn't want to paint
people. I wanted to place photographs instead. It was a way to make some ordinary
person look famous. I went from stamps to dollar bills to what I do now,
advertisements.
I've always been
amused by signs off the highway or in magazines, but I've never seen a
lot of blacks in those things. I feel a lot of the reason why we as a
whole don't seem to respect each other is because we have no sense of
worth. I think that if we saw more positive things pertaining to us, we
would do better. So my way of contributing to this is through my art.
I use black and white photographs as a representation of the past, and by
adding color I bring it to the present. I place circles in all my
paintings to represent the air bubbles that are in old films, as if you
were looking at a film. The ribbon I place in my paintings represents the
gift, which is how I view my paintings, as a gift that I am giving to the
public. I also place a church on the back of my paintings as a signature,
which is a tribute to my grandmother. She was an usher in her church for
as long as I can remember.
I try to paint like a
kid, no rules, and no boundaries. I am just having fun while trying to
educate the public.
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