Quotes

Carlo McCormick

An intre­pid icon­o­clast, Win­ston Smith has been slic­ing and dic­ing the media gris­tle of vul­gar Amer­i­cana to riotously satiric effect for so long now that he is noth­ing short of an icon him­self. Widely revered for his record cover art, most famously for acts like The Dead Kennedys, Green Day, D.O.A., Ben Harper and George Car­lin, Smith has come to define the atti­tudes and aes­thet­ics of Punk Rock, while forg­ing an acer­bic col­lage style that is oft-imitated but rarely matched. Con­tin­u­ing to show his work inter­na­tion­ally, Win­ston Smith was the sub­ject of a thirty-year ret­ro­spec­tive at E6 Gallery in San Fran­cisco this Fall and cur­rently has a major show at <TK> in Tokyo. In “The Idol Rich,” a spe­cial com­mis­sion for Paper, Smith reprises his clas­sic “In God We Trust” cross of dol­lars amidst an assem­bly of car­i­ca­ture grotesques of our national faith in greed.

V. Vale

Win­ston Smith has always stormed the Citadel of the Image Police. Like William Bur­roughs cut-ups, he cuts through tra­di­tion and cliched lines of asso­ci­a­tion to cre­ate new thoughts ulti­mately aimed at the destruc­tion of all author­i­tar­ian false conciousness.

Greg Palast

I lusted for Win­ston Smith’s art for my book the moment I saw a com­pendium of his stuff.  He’s copied the murals off the inte­rior of the psycho-commercial skull of the Amer­i­can Night­mare.  He can con­struct on one page what it takes me a whole chap­ter to write.

Eric Drooker

Win­ston wields his scalpel with razor sharp accu­racy, con­duct­ing open-heart surgery on a heart­less society.

Eric White

Win­ston Smith’s bril­liant mind-bendingly psycedelic cut and past­ings make my head spin, my stom­ach churn, and my heart grow hair (and that’s a good thing).

Peter Kuper

Win­ston Smith’s incred­i­ble col­lages stand as a con­stant reminder of hypocricy in the Democ­racy.  His razor wit and visual wis­dom put the “United Snakes of Amerika” in their proper place — nailed to the wall, exposed for all to see.  Thanks to Winston’s patriot acts, this country’s a safer place.

Ted Rall

Winston’s Smith is a national trea­sure.  Smith pos­sesses a dry, sav­age wit, metic­u­lous bal­ance between earnest­ness, and irony and a lazer sharp eye for the fol­lies of Amer­i­can soci­ety and pol­i­tics.  A con­su­mate per­fec­tion­ist, he’s polit­i­cal art’s best-kept secret.

Shep­ard Fairey

What always struck me about Winston’s work is his abil­ity to make a pro­found com­ment purely by reshuf­fling found images in a way that is both humor­ous and pointed.  Winston’s recent work is more beau­ti­ful than ever mak­ing his visual puns that are harsh indict­ments of the Amer­i­can dream as an ideal even more jarring.

Harry S. Robbins

Win­ston Smith crafts and cre­ates new worlds from an attention-commanding, some­how hyp­notic syn­the­sis of selected images from America’s price­less, almost unknown graphic her­itage.  His sly and sar­donic work breathes with the pres­ence of the past and the evolved future wait­ing to be born.

H.R. Giger

Win­ston Smith’s col­lage art is a cut­ting socio-political com­men­tary on the late 20th Cen­tury.  Irrev­er­ent in style, each unique piece is burst­ing with color and kinetic ideas.

Spain Rodriguez

He’s the gate­keeper to the phan­tas­magoric realms.

George DiCaprio

If there were a job title called, “Mas­ter of the Con­flu­ence of Par­al­lel Real­i­ties,” Win­ston Smith would fit the bill.  Each piece of work is a “samiz­dat” sub­sti­tute that is plau­si­ble out­side of its own con­text.  He but­ters his bread on three sides every­day and twice on Sunday.