"What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits”.
— Carl Jung
In the context of art history, the work of Seamus Smith would most likely be considered “Automatism”, or more simply put, automatic art. A process of art-making founded by the Dadaist and Surrealist’s movements of the 20th century; A technique that is guided by the unconscious mind, in an attempt to find the purest form of creation possible.
But he prefers to coin his highly detailed and intricate illustrative works as "Spontaneous Surrealism”. Something to be created in the moment, with the wonder and enthusiasm of childhood.
They are pieces of instantaneous imagination. Artwork without a preconceived plan or agenda: only making decisions of its ultimate fate, from moment to moment. A thing of constant evolution, seeking its own path, once the black of the ink meets the white of the paper, until it finds its completion and rightful place in this world.
His current artistic undertaking is the “Manifesto Trilogy”. From the same root word as “manual”, “meaning work of the hand, as in the Latin “Mano” for hand. To create hour after hour, pen stroke by pen stroke: his work embraces the history of traditional fine art, in the age of ever growing works of the digital world.
