October 20 through November 17, 2002

The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) is proud to present the second exhibition in the miniMATRIX series: MATRIX 201b Dean Smith, comprising a single work by Berkeley artist Dean Smith. Like other installations in the miniMATRIX series, Smith's work – an intricate, large-scale drawing on clear acetate – is based on a theme of the ephemeral and transitory.

Simultaneously evoking both Op Art and botanical textbook illustrations, Dean Smith's drawings comprise thousands of minute marks and fine lines, meticulous and detailed almost to the point of obsession. Like much of his work, Smith's drawing for miniMATRIX reflects a fascination with scientific material from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. In this early era of discovery the sciences were often commingled with philosophy and religion, with the result that scientific discoveries tended to be imbued with a certain quality of wonderment and awe. Smith's miniMATRIX drawing borrows imagery from a seventeenth-century anatomical illustration of a human eye by Anton Van Leeuwenhoek. In Smith's reproduction, however, the subject of the drawing is not immediately recognizable. By contriving to create a moment of confusion, followed by a rush of recognition and understanding, Smith hopes to replicate the sense of wonder that might have accompanied early scientific discoveries.

Public programs
Artist's Talk
Sunday, October 20, 2:30 p.m.
Museum lobby