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Bio
Originally from Wilton, Maine Kathi Smith completed a completed a Master of Fine Arts in Painting at the University of New Hampshire in 2008. She recieved Bachelor of Fine Arts, in Painting and Drawing at the University of Southern Maine in 2003. She shows regionally and nationally, and currently teaches as Adjunct Faculty at Plymouth State University in Plymouth NH.
Statement
Nature
contains the elements, in color and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard
contains the notes of all music.
But the artist is born to pick and choose…as the musician gathers his
notes, and forms his chords, until he brings forth from chaos, glorious
harmony.
–James Abbot McNeill Whistler
The
landscape contains a wealth of information that I am constantly attempting to
organize. I seek complicated
spaces with an abundance of information and consider it my task as an artist to
find order in such places. The places I select to work on site often involve a
juxtaposition of man-made structure and nature. These motifs are both chaotic and dense but have moments of
order and legibility. All of these qualities I aim to convey through my work.. I
revel in the in between spaces, often beyond the subject itself. These are the places I am not sure people take the time to notice,
but I am captivated within them for hours. With
an aggressive approach and traveling mark I attempt to suggest simultaneously
the feeling of space, while having moments in the work that are much more about
shape, line and gesture. Surface,
texture, mark, and light, all become interwoven into a physical act of
distinguishing positive and negative space. All of these elements, when
successful, harmonize and balance creating a final product that is more
evocative of the site chosen than descriptive.
Being
in the landscape provides me space to think, breathe, and be in the moment.
Increasingly I find it important and comforting to be reminded that this world
is larger than myself. The back yard motif is a place I often address in my
work. I am interested in the
narrative quality of the objects and spaces, and ultimately hope to convey the
feeling of these spaces to the viewer.
My work attempts to locate and engage the viewer with those spaces in
which I find myself lost; lost in the work, and lost in the act of
looking. Working on site in the en plein
air tradition, I find myself trying to capture the fleeting experiences I have
in any single space.
–Kathi Smith
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