About

Jared Small grew up in Memphis. He’s familiar with decaying homes and neighborhoods -- they fascinate him. He paints those structures (showing the rotting paint, sagging rooflines, and broken windows) in a heartily realistic manner that dissolves into abstraction as it eases toward the edges of his paintings on panel.

In an article in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Andria Lisle describes Small’s captivating approach as similar to the mysterious obsession with the vernacular of the South. She writes, “Small’s impetus to find beauty in the dilapidation is, likewise, a purely Southern sentiment that’s most often manifested in photographs of kudzu-overtaken barns and rusted tractors.”

Keen observation is Small’s greatest talent. His ability to believably detail what he sees is clearly evident in his portraiture. Whether a worldly octogenarian or a child on the cusp of adolescence, Small captures each individual’s zeal. He expresses his practice as, “…trying to accomplish a dream-like state…I’m imagining other people’s memories – fading, but still there.”