Making Waves: Daniel Mirchev & Jonathan Smith

March 28, April 26, 2025

Lanoue Gallery is pleased to present “Making Waves”, a two-person exhibition featuring new arrivals by sculptor Daniel Mirchev and photographer Jonathan Smith.

Daniel Mirchev's sand-colored waves, formed out of wood, are purely abstract compositions.  Born out of the artist’s labor-intensive practice of compacting dozens of layers of plywood to create massive, heavy blocks, he later revisits the solid wooden masses with a variety of carving and sanding tools to transform them into buttery-smooth, undulating and curving wall sculptures. 

Cashmere Air, for example, evokes the feeling of a cresting ocean wave on a mildly windy day.  Others like Dune I and Dune II are composed of numerous, delicate ripples across a perfectly round surface, evoking striations in a sandy beach as the tide recedes.

Jonathan Smith, however, takes his artistic eye on outdoor excursions to photograph naturally occurring forms in nature, most often involving water. Well-known for his borderline abstract compositions of icy streams, rivers, waterfalls, and glaciers in remote corners of the world, “Making Waves” showcases Smith’s appreciation for the stunning natural beauty of iconic beach destinations. Often shot from dramatic heights, Smith's compositions find particularly dynamic slices of rippling azure and cerulean seas, nestled along rocky shorelines.

Together, Mirchev and Smith's hypnotic waves invite the viewer to enjoy a quiet moment of contemplation.