Reaper's Rest

In "Reaper's Rest," a hooded figure with a scythe rests beneath a tree above a quiet farm valley.

A hooded, cloaked figure sits in the shade of a broad tree, the long handle of a scythe beside him, and looks down over a small cluster of farm buildings in the valley below. At first glance he could be a field hand pausing from the harvest, but his hooded cape and scythe also recall the traditional figure of the Grim Reaper, watching quietly over the village. Smith never resolves which the figure is, and that deliberate ambiguity hints at an interest in Surrealism, where ordinary scenes take on an uncanny, dreamlike edge. A road winds past the barns, and utility poles and rolling hills stretch toward the horizon. Smith simplifies the trees and hillsides into rounded, sculptural shapes and breaks the sky into crisp, angular lines, creating a landscape that is at once pastoral and quietly unsettling.