Lionel Smit: Obscura

Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami
March 8 – May 6, 2018

 

For Lionel Smit: Obscura, I developed the graphic identity, exhibition logo, and accompanying collateral, including the outdoor banner, wall text, and a gallery guide that introduced viewers to the artist’s exploration of shifting identity. Smit’s work — layered, gestural, and emotionally raw — centers on the evolving complexity of the Cape Malay people in South Africa, a group shaped by multicultural influences and colonial histories.

 

The graphic approach I chose mirrors this balance of tension and clarity: bold typography set against soft gradients and muted tones, allowing the expressive brushwork of Smit’s portraiture to dominate the composition. The exhibition logo was kept deliberately clean and modern, creating a quiet contrast to the fragmentation and painterly movement within the work itself. Letterspacing and weight give the title “Obscura” a sense of mass, grounding the fluidity of the portrait with a sense of presence and stability.

 

The printed invitation, which also served as the template for the exhibition’s outdoor banner, paired a close-cropped section of one of Smit’s large-scale portraits with open negative space — offering an intimate glimpse into the physicality of the artist’s technique while evoking the broader themes of visibility, heritage, and hybridity at the heart of the exhibition.