Lowell Ryan Projects will present an online exhibition of new works by Carrie Mae Smith, September 20- October 18, 2025.

In this new body of work, Smith continues painting still lives—not as a traditional exercise, but as a quiet rebellion. These paintings are meditations on slowness, silence, and the intimate rituals of daily life. The title is taken from Pablo Neruda’s poem Keeping Quiet, where he asks us to count to twelve and do nothing—not out of indifference, but as an invitation to stillness, to listen. "Perhaps the earth can teach us,” he writes, “as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive."

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Excerpt from Pablo Neruda’s poem “Keeping Quiet”