Noah Saterstrom : What Became of Dr. Smith? A dual splintering of mind and history.

The Burning of JT Smith Drugstore, Donaldsonville, Louisiana, 1904
Noah Saterstrom

Conde Contemporary is delighted to present the work of Noah Saterstrom in the online solo exhibition, "What Became of Dr. Smith? A dual splintering of mind and history". The Artsy exclusive exhibition and online viewing room, run from February 12th thorough March 14th on Artsy.net.

Raised in Natchez, Mississippi and educated at Scotland’s Glasgow School of Art, Saterstrom's series "What Became of Dr. Smith" is an ongoing series of paintings about his great grandfather, an itinerant optometrist in Mississippi, whose mental illness, criminal transgressions and subsequent disappearance resulted in his near full erasure from the family history.

"With the 'What Became of Dr. Smith' series, Noah is attempting to piece together a visual timeline of his great grandfather's life. The resulting images are hauntingly beautiful and surreal. Many of the subjects appear ephemeral, as though they may disappear into dust at any moment", said Stacy Conde, Director of Conde Contemporary, "Noah has a way of capturing ghosts on canvas, with exact yet loose strokes and a genuine mastery of light."

"I, armed with a sheaf of ancestral photographs and first-person written accounts, and in conjunction with the help of Mississippi’s State Librarian, have been searching state, local and private archives for evidence of Dr. Smith’s life", said Saterstrom.

Painting is a slippery and non-linear medium, which makes it uniquely suited to this inherently fractured and disjointed story. Dr. Smith’s tale is rendered in a series of narrative paintings that are united in their disordered reflection of a dual splintering of mind and history. Much of the imagery is derived directly from family photograph albums from the years before Dr. Smith’s disappearance.

"The series so far has produced hundreds of small “study” paintings as well as the collection of larger works that I’m delighted to show here with Conde Contemporary. The culmination of this body of work will be shown at the Mississippi Museum of Art in 2023”, stated Saterstrom.