“Protector’s Hand-and-Eye” painting by D.G. Smalling.
52 ionOklahoma APRIL/MAY 2015
Wallace has started adding his photographs to wood and metal with a coat of acrylic resin, a technique that has made his work stand out and won him several awards. Smalling said his mother and a woman who acted like a grandmother to him, Kay Orr, always encouraged him. He has been creating single-line art, an image drawn in a continuous line, for more than 10 years. His interest for minimalism and his Choctaw heritage drew him to the art. The continuous line defines the contours of the subject, which Smalling then develops with paint and/or ink. “Every piece I create, regardless of scale, is one continuous line,” Smalling said. “My work has evolved into an exercise of contemporary Southeastern ‘neo-hieroglyphics,’ the reapproach to hieroglyphic art of my Choctaw heritage, in a modern way, in terms of materials, techniques and subjects. The subjects I depict are rarely historical because I want to describe life today.” Smalling’s art has been in several exhibitions, including featured artist at the National Museum of the American Indian “Choctaw Codetalkers Celebration” in Washington, D.C. in 2012. He also has been commissioned to paint several portraits, including former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner, T. Boone Pickens and Sir Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. n