“Smke Signals” 1997

Artist: Greg Busch

Sold- Private Collection

Smoke Signals is a triptych of coded language — a cinematic sequence rendered in blue, gesture, and blur. Three frames, one tension: hands, weapons, and smoke. Busch isolates moments that suggest intimacy, danger, and reflection, then lets them unravel into abstraction.

There’s no dialogue here, only signals — visual, emotional, and cultural. Each panel moves us deeper into ambiguity: from the sharp precision of hands to the soft distortion of a cigarette’s final exhale.

This work captures Busch’s mastery of pacing and restraint. It feels like surveillance, memory, and ritual all at once — a quiet storm of suggestion and control. A rare early piece that foreshadows much of his later cinematic language.