Astral Planes: Philip Smith at Primary

Philip Smith has always seemed the oddball of the “Pictures” generation. In theory, he worked with all the right ingredients: a generic sign system of illustrations resembling those of instruction manuals, a way of painting that ironically highlights mark-making and the medium itself, and compositions that mimic diagrams, charts, and other pedagogical tools. And yet, the results always turned out a little too quirky. No matter what he tried—building up surfaces until the pigmen