Google Lionel Smit and the results that pop up are immediate and prolific, very impressive, grand even. Those au fait with A-listers in the world of South African art will know Smit’s work.

Exciting then, that on May 3, Lionel Smit’s latest work comes to the Knysna Fine Art Gallery in an exhibition called Shift.

Lionel Smit is a South African artist, known for his contemporary portraiture executed through large canvases and sculptures. He has lost count of how many exhibitions he has had and his work can be found all over the world including in prestigious private and public collections.

Smit’s artistic diversity is pursued through a variety of mediums and his art is defined by a deeply rooted symbiotic relationship between sculpture and painting.  Each of Smit’s works offers an entry point into the variety and richness that lies beneath the faces we encounter in life, whether applied in bronze or paint. The blending of techniques across genres is a display of Smit’s work in multiple media, all bearing a visible and tangible overlap.

Smit was born in 1982 in Pretoria. He says art came to him so naturally, he never even thought of doing anything else. From a tender age he was exposed to sculpture through his father Anton Smit, a celebrated South African sculptor, and by the age of 12 Lionel was already sculpting. He studied at Pretoria's Pro Arte School of Arts and then began his life as a commercial artist.

While he started with sculpture, over time he started painting and the two mediums have become  interwoven. “Painting for me is much more direct with sculpture being more of a journey,” he says.

The Shift exhibition

For this exhibition there will be 14 pieces on display, five paintings, six sculptures and three silkscreens.

“Shift captures my journey as an artist navigating the quiet transformations that redefine how I create. This exhibition marks a departure from the bold, sweeping gestures of my past work, embracing smaller brushstrokes. Intimate small figurative sculptures embody this idea of focusing on larger bold fragmented pieces into more subtle and delicate work that demand precision and introspection,” says Smit.

In Shift Smit says he is drawing from his early inspiration. “Some of the work reminds me of techniques of Van Gogh, early works by Picasso and smaller sculptural pieces by Michelangelo. Each mark and form reflects a personal evolution—a move toward subtlety, where the smallest details carry the weight of change,” says Smit.

This exhibition is also a shift from the size that Lionel usually sculpts as pieces on display are smaller, more detailed and intricate, he says.

Drift is an oil on linen, 150cm by 190cm, and Smit explains it’s exploring sides of himself and while this is the largest work in Lionel Smit’s new exhibition, it is composed of small, intricate brushstrokes—a striking departure from the bold, sweeping gestures he is typically known for.

 Image: Drift, 2025, oil on linen, 150 x 190 cm

Calm Surge 80cm by 80cm is a portrait that draws the viewer in. “It engages the viewers and lets them interpret it in their own way,” says Smit. “It’s a combination of elements, the push and pull of larger brush strokes are calm while the smaller brush strokes give it energy. She’s staring at you from a calm place.”

 Image: Calm Surge, 2025, oil on linen, 80 x 80 cm

Repose is a small figurine, 35cm in diameter, once again alluding to the title of this exhibit because his figurines are much smaller than he usually makes them. Repose was inspired by Michelangelo’s work as his figurines are reposed in different states, Smit says.

 Image: Repose #1, 2024, bronze, edition 6/8, 18 x 43 x 37.5 cm

Five of Smit’s smaller figures for Shift are made of clay, but for the purposes of Shroud he worked with seamed clay putty strips layered over one another and then cast it in bronze using the lost-wax method.

Over the years Smit has drawn inspiration from his two favourite artists, the work of Francis Bacon and that of Lucian Freud. Bacon was an Irish-born figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery focused on the human form with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical structures. Lucian Freud was a British painter and draughtsman specialising in figurative art recognised as one of the foremost 20^th Century English portraitists.

“Freud’s brush strokes become heavier, thicker, very fleshy as the oil builds up. It’s three dimensional and tactile which is what I strive for in my work…both in painting and in my sculptures,” he says.

Smit has his own studio in Somerset West where he works on various pieces every day.

Smit’s achievements

Smit’s work has garnered international recognition and he has had sold-out solo exhibitions in London and Hong Kong.

Among the feathers in his cap is his painting Kholiswa which was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London and received the Visitors’ Choice – BP Portrait Award 2013.

Collections including his works vary from Standard Chartered Bank to Laurence Graff’s Art Collection while one of his paintings was featured on the cover of a Christie’s Auction Catalogue.

Delaire Graff Estate is a world-class art destination in the Stellenbosch Valley and Laurence Graff is a prominent collector of South African art. Each piece that adorns the estate has been handpicked by him. In Graff’s much-treasured personal collections, Lionel Smit hangs alongside artists such as Anton Smit, Deborah Bell, Dylan Lewis, Cecil Skotnes, Kendell Geers, Ndikhumbule Ngqinambi and William Kentridge. Graff began his impressive collection by acquiring classic Impressionist paintings and one of his works included a small Renoir he acquired in the late 1970s which he kept in a safe with his diamonds.

Smit’s works live in collections including the Ellerman Contemporary, Rand Merchant Bank, European Investment Bank, Johannesburg City Council, Saronsberg Wine Estate, Grainvest Futures and the South African Embassy in Nigeria.

A monumental bronze sculpture called Morphous is in Union Square, New York for public display.

He also has three large bronze sculptures at EJI’s Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery, Alabama. This Reflection of Self comprises three towering cylindrical sculptures, each reaching an impressive height of three metres and a diameter of two metres. Constructed from bronze, the sculptures are adorned with approximately 50 raw sculpted faces that gaze inward. These faces, representing diverse ethnicities, symbolise the intricate tapestry of humanity’s shared experiences, says Smit.

Smit has held solos at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Miami and the Didrichsen Art Museum in Helsinki, Finland.

He has received the Ministerial Award from the Department of Culture for Visual Art in the Western Cape, a Merit Award from Vuleka, Sanlam Art Competition.

The Lionel Smit studio is located in a unique area steeped in history in Somerset West. The studio was designed and built by renowned architect Stuart Hermansen of HB Architects. It is a voluminous space, church-like in terms of spatial quality and the place from where Smit works his magic.

Cover photo of Lionel Smit by Coetzer Cooke