Paul Smedberg: Artist With a Cellphone Camera

Example of Paul Smedberg’s work. Courtesy Photo

By Aaron Cohen

For five decades, Bloomington artist Paul Smedberg has pursued creative endeavors by skewing familiar approaches, expanding their capacities, and creating unintended results that both challenge and delight. 

The latest device to receive the Smedberg treatment is the cellphone camera, where he uses simple, free software to combine and manipulate often random images. Compared to working on a computer, he says he appreciates the relative lack of control on the phone, where “all gestures make big ch

“Most artists have intention,” he explains. “I don’t. Taste, judgment, yes. But there is no technique.” 

While still allowing himself a curatorial role, Smedberg prizes randomness. “Newer technology emancipates artists to focus on expression rather than technique,” he says. “At last, visual improvisation can be done at the pace of jazz.”

He likens what he does to improvising music or writing poetry—“I’m drawn to where there’s no one right answer.” “When you look at my art, you begin along the familiar path by seeing shapes and colors, and make some summary identifications,” he continues. “You know whether the setting is inside or outside, and generally which parts of an image are animal, vegetable, mineral, or human made. And then as you look further, you leave the familiar perceptual path. You are with [and in] something new and beyond where given reality ends.”

Smedberg’s new work can be seen during the Bloomington Open Studios Tour, October 11–12, and at a one-person show at Backspace Gallery November 7–24.

Visit paulsmedberg.com to learn more.