Doug Smith’s series of monumental drawings build on ideas of spectacle and transmigration. The term catharsis has been used by Aristotle to describe the effect of purging societal angst through evocation of pity and fear in tragic drama, and has since extended to further signify personal experiences of release, such as in revealing repressed emotions and memories. Smith’s use of easily recognizable and ever-present images and symbols, such as commercial aircraft, military helicopters, human and bird figures, or references to architectural draftsmanship, create a simultaneous push and pull between accessibility of the drawings and absence of a fixed meaning. The sense of opaque familiarity that steers clear of a specific reading brings into focus the space just below the surface of both personal and the collective consciousness, while Smith’s use of a panoramic format creates a growing non-linear storyboard of methodically repeated elements that draw attention to contemporary and historic anxieties.