Artist”s Bio
Jed Smalley’s early years were spent demonstrating a complete disregard for the utility of formal education. That said, in the spirit of self contradiction, he pursued a BFA at Parson’s School of Design, an MFA from Yale University and an MD degree from State University of New York.
Sculpture and painting seemed to have awakened an inquisitive nature more willing to pursue formal education. While at Parson’s, artists like Ron Bladen and Clement Meadmore were influences. Later at Yale, David VonSchlegel and Richard Serra were personal heroes.
Jed left Yale to enter the art scene in New York as a large-scale sculptor but wound up losing confidence in the importance and meaning of art. He returned to academia to gain an MD degree from State University of New York Medical School. In the years that followed, while practicing medicine, he remained devoted to making art, mostly paintings while keeping removed from showing his work.
For the last fourteen years his work has been focused on large paintings using landscape as a scaffold for abstract concerns. The paintings are drippled from varied heights onto canvas or wood on the floor. Multiple layers accumulate to develop imagery relating to the Fibonacci Sequence and Divine Proportion.
He has retired from medical practice now for fourteen years and shows his work again with the Maryland Federation of Art, Yoiks Gallery, Catalyst Contemporary Gallery in Maryland and Zenith Gallery in Washington DC.