All the Small Things
TJC Gallery, Spartanburg SC
February 19, 2025 – April 4, 2025
Size matters in art. The scale of a work when seen in person can be an essential ingredient in its visual impact. And the received canon of fine art in the West has a clear bias for BIG things—from the monumental statuary of antiquity to the massive canvases in the contemporary art scene. Indeed, for the past four hundred years, artists have been highly incentivized to “go big,” as larger works commanded more prestige. Within the hierarchy of art genres inherited from the seventeenth century and the standardized measurements that evolved in the art industries of the nineteenth century, the largest canvases and commissions have traditionally been reserved for imposing landscapes and full-length portraits. Against this grain, the present exhibition celebrates the wondrous world of small art—in this case, paintings of no more than twenty inches.
Why might an artist work on a small scale? For some the motivation may be economic. Larger paintings mean more material costs, from more paint to bigger frames and heftier shipping prices. Thus, the size of an artwork potentially reveals unequal financial challenges faced by, for instance, women artists, self-taught artists, or artists of color. At the same time, the cheaper costs of smaller works make them well-suited for preliminary studies (as with Aaron Douglas’s The Toiler) or for trial efforts with new styles and techniques (such as Theodoros Stamos’s experiments with abstraction in Flow). Smaller art is more portable, making it ideal for artists working in the plein-air tradition or those working rapidly for tourist markets. Finally, although petite paintings have historically been relegated to subjects considered mundane or insignificant, these small works can instead confer an intimacy and humanity for the artist and viewer alike.