His paintings are hybrids, combining detailed, controlled, realistic features with organic, unruly abstract strokes. In a single work, he may draw inspiration from both current and past art movements. His abstractions often erase facial expressions, investing the often classical motifs with a resolute modernity. For his upcoming solo exhibition, iPost-apocalyptic Post-apocalyptic Renaissance, Smit tackles the lurking doom that currently pervades our lives – the result of war, pandemic and the most daunting of all climate change.

There is a sense of a new, harsh world order creeping up on humankind. 

An expert in craftsmanship of the old masters, Smit reinterprets familiar gems by the Renaissance heavyweights. Starting from scratch, he builds up each work in thick, luscious layers of oil paint – only to disrupt the classical beauty with gloomy contemporary life in the shape of modern-day figures and carefree dashes of spray paint.

Though The Three Graces shares both its name and composition with the classical painting by Raphael, Smit depicts the once nude women in demure blood-red capes – a dystopic homage to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and a trenchant criticism of the new anti-abortion laws in the United States.                                       

Smit’s New Millennial Venus looks beautiful in her shell, gracefully sinking into the water under the weight of her poised, obese body. The work is a playful, ambiguous comment on both obesity and the rising water levels brought on by climate change.                                           

Bacchus and Ariadne Reinterpreted repositions Titian’s Renaissance classic in a colourful new setting - an unrecognisable natural landscape mutated by the harrowing nuclear disaster of Fukushima. Smit has drawn inspiration from the use of colours of graffiti.

Graffiti artists tend to spray over each other’s work, creating new vibrant colour combinations we might not generally think of. Never has destruction been dressed up in more vibrantly happy colours. Why the word ‘Renaissance’ in the title of the exhibition? Renaissance heralds rebirth, and every birth carries a grain of hope.

What will the future bring? We don’t know. But “At least we have art,” says Smit.