jdsmercuryart.com - The Liar

Review of "The Liar" By Jordy S.

The Liar (Exhibit A, B & D) by Jeffery Smith is a powerful, provocative and emotional piece, expressing Smith’s deepest angst against the darker side of human nature. Viewing the unfinished piece, my eyes were first drawn towards the top left corner, where a human head grows out of the dirt like a malevolent mountain. We are graced with a view of the head’s brain, surrounded by a crown, implying that this individual has some sort of delusions of grandeur or some sort of exaggerated sense of self-worth. Several pikes rise out of the human visage, surrounding the head with several planets and stars; as if this being could be so conceited as to think itself the center of the universe!

Behind the massive face is a small man, holding a large megaphone in the place where the head’s mouth should be… It seems as if this head has no voice of its own, but depends upon others to speak for it; yet the massive face shadows the small man, making the actual speaker seem insignificant. Could this be a comment on how people often preach about the world from what they have learned from memory, rather than what they have experienced? Thus, the head seems to claim the other’s voice as his own, while simultaneously annihilating the identity of the other to continue some sort of self-flattery, implying that the words of the other are its own.

Beside the massive head, two arms reach out from the earth, one holding a key, the other holding a watering can with a crack in the bottom. The arm with the watering can reaches to a garden of dying plants on the other side of a fence, but the water leaks out the bottom, creating a river which flows into a subcrustal cavern, the water turning into puppet-strings on which two men are suspended above an inferno. A massive, serpentine demon stands next to them, looking at the viewer with a sickly smile. It as if the failures of the man growing from the earth have doomed others to a sickening fate, to the joy of the demon.

Across from the mountain-man is a hill, atop of which a large, corporate office-building is erected. There is a lock hanging from it, implying that the monster growing from the earth controls entry to this structure. Several windows have arms reaching out of them, searching for something outside of this concrete and glass tomb. Beside the building a massive microphone stands to capture the sounds of those encased, but for who or what is unknown. Another mechanical arm also erupts from the earth, holding a picture frame with a stoic face, staring ominously at the scene, devoid of emotion or empathy, except for perhaps some sadness. It as if this face is to be treasured, to be respected, but it seems as if this face refuses to give back what it demands. Perhaps this face represents an idea of an ideal state of affairs, and its slightly sorrowed look displays a cynical conception of what has occurred instead of what was dreamed?

Surrounding all of this, large gears adorn the scenery. Surely, this emphasizes the dichotomy between the natural state of growth and the unnatural state of a mechanistic approach to the world. One is nurtured and born from nature, another is imposed to create a set of conditions for some pragmatic purpose, but at what cost?

At the bottom of the piece, an assembly is being held to the joy of the observers. They stand and raise their arms in excitement as another constructs, through three pieces of wood placed through two pillars, a human face. This invoked images of the media to me; how the public cries for an ‘authentic’ individual, yet reaches maniacal fervor when they find an individual constructed to their desires; something totally inhuman, yet resembling a human enough that any person could relate to it.

To the right of this exhibition, several faceless men hang, unmoving and nondescript except for the letters which adorn their chests: A, B and D. They are totally ignored by the mass of people in favor for the fictional face which resides directly in front of the crowd. The fact that Smith included these men’s ‘names’ in the title of the piece, however, implies their significance; these men are called “Exhibit A, B and D” by Smith, implying that they are also on display, however, it is not the men that the public see, but what they lack, their face. However, the face which the public adores is not the face of these men at all, but a construction; a lie.

Surrounding all this, massive worm-like larvae, with a similar set of teeth as the demon, writhe along the ground. What they have come to consume is left to the viewer to decide, but their presence is certainly unsettling.

Near the dying plants, by the side of a cliff, a young girl wanders, solitary yet seemingly care-free. She seems to embody the only sign of innocence in this dark piece, yet she is completely unaware to the domesticated pigs that follow her, a good number of which have lost their footing and fall, rolling painfully down the slope to her right. Pigs are often an animal associated with excess, and perhaps it is the desire for excess which drives ‘the liar.’ In an attempt to tell the masses that they should feel just and fair, he must lie to hide the true nature of their existence: controlled excess to keep the status quo.


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Review of "The Liar" By Jordy S. The Liar (Exhibit A, B & D) by Jeffery Smith is a powerful, provocative and emotional piece, expressing Smith’s deepest angst against the darker side of human nature. Viewing the unfinished piece, my eyes were first drawn towards the top left corner, where a human head grows out of the dirt like a malevolent mountain. We are graced with a view of the head’s brain, surrounded by a crown, implying that this individual has some sort of delusions of grandeur or some sort of exaggerated sense of self-worth. Several pikes rise out of the human visage, surrounding the head with several planets and stars; as if this being could be so conceited as to think itself the center of the universe! Behind the massive face is a small man, holding a large megaphone in the place where the head’s mouth should be… It seems as if this head has no voice of its own, but depends upon others to speak for it; yet the massive face shadows the small man, making the actual speaker seem insignificant. Could this be a comment on how people often preach about the world from what they have learned from memory, rather than what they have experienced? Thus, the head seems to claim the other’s voice as his own, while simultaneously annihilating the identity of the other to continue some sort of self-flattery, implying that the words of the other are its own. Beside the massive head, two arms reach out from the earth, one holding a key, the other holding a watering can with a crack in the bottom. The arm with the watering can reaches to a garden of dying plants on the other side of a fence, but the water leaks out the bottom, creating a river which flows into a subcrustal cavern, the water turning into puppet-strings on which two men are suspended above an inferno. A massive, serpentine demon stands next to them, looking at the viewer with a sickly smile. It as if the failures of the man growing from the earth have doomed others to a sickening fate, to the joy of the demon. Across from the mountain-man is a hill, atop of which a large, corporate office-building is erected. There is a lock hanging from it, implying that the monster growing from the earth controls entry to this structure. Several windows have arms reaching out of them, searching for something outside of this concrete and glass tomb. Beside the building a massive microphone stands to capture the sounds of those encased, but for who or what is unknown. Another mechanical arm also erupts from the earth, holding a picture frame with a stoic face, staring ominously at the scene, devoid of emotion or empathy, except for perhaps some sadness. It as if this face is to be treasured, to be respected, but it seems as if this face refuses to give back what it demands. Perhaps this face represents an idea of an ideal state of affairs, and its slightly sorrowed look displays a cynical conception of what has occurred instead of what was dreamed? Surrounding all of this, large gears adorn the scenery. Surely, this emphasizes the dichotomy between the natural state of growth and the unnatural state of a mechanistic approach to the world. One is nurtured and born from nature, another is imposed to create a set of conditions for some pragmatic purpose, but at what cost? At the bottom of the piece, an assembly is being held to the joy of the observers. They stand and raise their arms in excitement as another constructs, through three pieces of wood placed through two pillars, a human face. This invoked images of the media to me; how the public cries for an ‘authentic’ individual, yet reaches maniacal fervor when they find an individual constructed to their desires; something totally inhuman, yet resembling a human enough that any person could relate to it. To the right of this exhibition, several faceless men hang, unmoving and nondescript except for the letters which adorn their chests: A, B and D. They are totally ignored by the mass of people in favor for the fictional face which resides directly in front of the crowd. The fact that Smith included these men’s ‘names’ in the title of the piece, however, implies their significance; these men are called “Exhibit A, B and D” by Smith, implying that they are also on display, however, it is not the men that the public see, but what they lack, their face. However, the face which the public adores is not the face of these men at all, but a construction; a lie. Surrounding all this, massive worm-like larvae, with a similar set of teeth as the demon, writhe along the ground. What they have come to consume is left to the viewer to decide, but their presence is certainly unsettling. Near the dying plants, by the side of a cliff, a young girl wanders, solitary yet seemingly care-free. She seems to embody the only sign of innocence in this dark piece, yet she is completely unaware to the domesticated pigs that follow her, a good number of which have lost their footing and fall, rolling painfully down the slope to her right. Pigs are often an animal associated with excess, and perhaps it is the desire for excess which drives ‘the liar.’ In an attempt to tell the masses that they should feel just and fair, he must lie to hide the true nature of their existence: controlled excess to keep the status quo.