“This one is important,” Ronald Smith tells me as he pulls a canvas out of his flat file. “It symbolizes the descent of man into madness. The naked woman is his lust, the apple his masculinity and the woolly sheep his need to domesticate the world.”

Ryan Trenton | Student Life

The canvas, as I saw it, was a mostly white field, with red splashes and smudged paint in atypical patterns, but it spoke to me of his inner struggle. He’s been through so much.

“Is that the apple?” I ask Ronald.

“No, that’s the naked woman’s pillow, her only relief from the man’s lust.”

“Oh. I guess that’s why you’re the artist, and I’m just a woman. Your contributions to society should always be immediately validated,” I tell him with an honest smile. Smith says his favorite artists are “broad ranging,” including geniuses like Pablo Picasso, Yves Klein and Jackson Pollock. “It’s not that a woman can’t be a good artist, it’s just that I’ve never seen one. I also listen to a lot of early punk rock. The loud noises really make me feel good.”

Smith, who is only a freshman in the Sam Box School, is already making a name for himself. He started painting when he was only 13, receiving his first gallery show at the age of 17.

“It was really an outlet for all the serious issues I went through, like my girlfriend breaking up with me and my mom making me clean my room every day,” Smith says, his messy black hair falling across a boyish face. “I painted a lot of desolate landscapes back then—trees with no leaves, cabins with smoke coming out of them. Stuff like that.”

Of course, Smith has never spent much time in nature himself. He grew up in suburban Chicago, where his parents still work as corporate lawyers. When I ask Smith about his parents, he smiles his romantic-comedy smile, his eyes flashing with light and more knowledge of the universe than I could ever fathom.

When he says things like, “yeah, dude” and “I mean, I guess,” I can’t help but swoon. I suppose it’s because white men always know what’s best for everyone. Needless to say, I fall under his spell and almost forget to turn on my audio recorder.

“My parents never understood my work, but they knew it was good just based on my physical traits. I was a straight white man who had angst as a teenager, so I was kind of destined for this. What can I say? I like big stupid boobs and ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.’ That makes me special,” he says.

Professors are starting to take notice of Smith’s work, too. Jimothy Norris, dean of the Sam Box School, told me about the young artist’s recognition.

“He’s really one of my favorite students already. He has a way of working that’s just…unconventional. He puts so much emotion into his work. You can tell he’s really struggled and deserves recognition,” Norris said.

Smith was originally in Drawing 1 but was moved up to graduate-level classes when it was clear that he wasn’t being challenged enough.

Says Norris, “I haven’t seen any of his finished works, but I already gave him an ‘A’ for the semester. It’s just so clear he knows what he’s doing.”

Valerie Kilmer, a sophomore printmaking student, was quite impressed by Smith’s work when she first met him in Etta’s Cafe during lunch.

“He had written ‘love is blind’ on a napkin in Sharpie and then ripped it to shreds. I just felt like I knew what he was going through,” she said. “Being a man, especially a straight white man, is hard, but he makes it so understandable.”

For the most part, Smith’s art explores the theme of growing up male and experiencing a broken world full of hurt. Like Pollock, his painting is incredibly physical in nature. He often ties his brush to the front of his pants, lying down flat on the painting and using a gentle thrusting motion to cover the canvas.

“I just want to be close to the subject. The white canvas is my earth, my clay. I can’t look straight into the sun, but a pair of sunglasses gets me pretty close,” he says wistfully.

By the end of my time with Smith, it’s quite clear why he’s been able to make a name for himself. He understands the world in a deep way and yet maintains an emotional distance from it that is enthralling. I think I’m in love.