Dave Smith | Desert Landscape (1992)
Acrylic on canvas | 36 x 36 inches
In Desert Landscape, Dave Smith utilizes a meticulous, multi-stage process to explore the cinematic and commercialized experience of the American West, presenting the landscape as a series of curated, industrial segments. This work is a diptych consisting of two canvases physically joined to form a unified 36 x 36-inch field, a structural choice that reinforces the fragmented nature of the modern traveler's perception. Smith’s practice begins with a physical collage—an iterative assembly of images harvested exclusively from print media, such as travel magazines, road maps, and commercial catalogs. In an era before digital convenience, this involved a tactile "hunting" of icons, where the artist spent weeks refining the spatial configuration of these cut-outs by hand to ensure a precise, window-like narrative. By translating these small-scale paper studies into a high-fidelity acrylic painting, Smith amplifies the artifice of the scene, suggesting that the "Great Outdoors" has been reduced to a flat, manageable surface. The resulting composition functions as a visual travelogue, capturing the specific sensation of a landscape viewed not through direct contact, but through the mediated and highly branded lens of 20th-century tourism and transit.
The color story of the work is deliberately anchored in the vernacular of the American roadside, specifically utilizing the iconic orange and teal palette of the Howard Johnson hotel chain. This choice of color immediately evokes the nostalgia of the 20th-century road trip, framing the "wilderness" through the lens of corporate hospitality and reliable middle-class leisure. The lower canvas features a rhythmic procession of realistically rendered motorhomes—contemporary descendants of the 19th-century stagecoach—traversing a flat, featureless orange void. Above them, the upper canvas presents a sequence of "photographic" vignettes based on the artist’s own journey through the Southwest. These snapshots of Monument Valley, Joshua Tree, and the desert horizon are rendered with a precision that mimics the glossy aesthetic of a postcard, suggesting that the landscape is something to be "collected" rather than truly inhabited.
Crucially, the presence of the RVs represents the modern traveler’s demand for comfort and accessibility within an inherently harsh environment. Instead of "roughing it," the contemporary pioneer seeks to navigate the desert while maintaining a tether to modern necessities and domestic luxury. The motorhome acts as a mobile fortress of suburban convenience, allowing the observer to gaze upon the heat and dust of the Southwest from behind a pane of glass and the safety of an air-conditioned interior. By locking these natural vistas into a rigid, graphic grid, Smith highlights how the West has been transformed into a series of curated viewpoints, efficiently organized for the consumption of the weekend traveler who carries their comfort with them.
Desert Landscape is a quintessential example of Neo-Pop Surrealism that dialogues closely with the work of fellow Los Angeles-based artist Larry Johnson. Much like Johnson’s use of slick, commercial graphic design and vibrant color fields to explore cultural myths, Smith uses the "Howard Johnson" palette to deconstruct the aesthetics of American kitsch. The work also draws on the legacy of Ed Ruscha, specifically his fascination with the horizontality of the Western landscape and the "deadpan" representation of roadside architecture. By treating the motorhomes as repeating, text-like icons, Smith invokes the spirit of Andy Warhol, suggesting that even our experience of "pristine" nature has been mass-produced and commodified. The graphic flatness of the work further aligns with the Hard-Edge Abstraction movement, but pivots that precision toward a critical investigation of how the Great Expansion has culminated in the corporate branding of the horizon.
Curatorial Recommendation: This diptych is a pivotal work for collectors interested in the intersection of West Coast Pop and the history of American travel. Its unique 36 x 36-inch format and striking commercial color palette offer immense graphic power, serving as a sophisticated commentary on the "mediated" landscape. It is an essential acquisition for any collection focusing on the evolution of the road trip as a cultural icon and the enduring influence of Los Angeles-based conceptual traditions.