David Brian Smith Explores Place and Belonging in ‘All around the Wrekin’
The exhibition, now on view at Ross+Kramer, presents surrealistic landscaped painted on herringbone linen.
Summary
- David Brian Smith’s All around the Wrekin exhibition explores English pastoral traditions through luminous, surrealistic landscapes
- Works such as “Another Dream” and “A Dragons Eye” combine oil and gold leaf on herringbone linen
- On view at Ross + Kramer until November 22, 2025
London-based contemporary artist David Brian Smith’s latest exhibition at Ross + Kramer Gallery is titled All around the Wrekin. The show presents a series of luminous new landscapes that merge memory, folklore and ancestral heritage into richly symbolic compositions. The title itself references a Midlands expression meaning “to take the long way around,” a fitting metaphor for Smith’s winding journey through personal history and imaginative reinterpretation of rural life.
The show features several notable large‑scale works painted on herringbone linen, a material that nods to Smith’s family heritage. Pieces such as “Another Dream” (2025), “And nature smiled” (2025) and “Jackfield” (2025) combine oil paint with gold leaf to create shimmering, ethereal surfaces. In “A Dragons Eye” (2025), iridescent skies and multicolored animals populate a hallucinatory landscape, while “A place of my heart” (2025) offers a deeply personal meditation on belonging and memory. The compositions are rich in intricate brushwork and layered symbolism, featuring small details such as tiny figures on horseback, multicolored animals grazing beneath iridescent skies, and miniature farmhouses set among rolling hills. These vivid scenes purposefully hover between reality and reverie, merging personal history with myth and folklore.
All around the Wrekin highlights Smith’s ongoing exploration of the English pastoral tradition, reimagined through radiant color and layered brushwork. His creative process involves painting large-scale canvases on heavily woven herringbone linen, a deliberate choice that pays homage to his family’s heritage. While his scenes evoke the spirit of Norwich School painters, he transforms the familiar English countryside with what has been described as a hallucinatory, technicolor vision.
David Brian Smith’s All around the Wrekin is currently on view at Ross + Kramer’s Miami Beach gallery, and will run until November 22, 2025.
Ross+Kramer
1910 Alton Rd, Miami Beach,
FL 33139, USA
