Featured Artist of the Month : Kerrie Smith Feb. 2022 | TheArtList - Art & Photo Calls for Visual Artists and Photographers.

Kerrie Smith

Santa Barbara, California, USA

English Artist Kerrie Smith lives and works in Santa Barbara, CA. Smith attended Central Saint Martin’s School of Art, she received her B.A. with Honors in 3-Dimensional & Theater Design. After a successful career as a Theater-Set designer Kerrie returned to painting full time and has exhibited throughout USA.

Kerrie worked as a theater designer in England, France, Holland and the United States collaborating with directors and designers. As an Artist and Art Educator and President of the Art Council Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art, Santa Barbara she founded the non-profit organization Art Walk for Kids/Adults with outreach programs for artists with disabilities. Her programs have received Congressional Awards from both Congresswoman Lois Capps and Assembly Woman Hannah Beth Jackson.

How and when did you start creating art?

As far back as I can remember! As a child my mother Ann would give me out of date wallpaper sample catalogues that I would reuse the backs of for sketch books, also design small fantasy environments with the sample papers. Both my mother and grandmother were creative influences and all 3 of us always had projects on the go.

What media and genres do you work in?

Painting, photography, printmaking, collage, installation. I’m working on a series of banners now for a museum installation that brings all my mediums together which is very exciting for me.

Who or what are your influences?

I am drawing inspiration from my many walks in Central Coast Wilderness and shorelines. Noticing the environmental changes right here in California is having a big effect on my work too.

I build my abstract compositions with multiple layers of pattern, color, and an array of techniques and tools, seeking a balance between feral nature and its geometrical armature. With a mindful intention to capture not only the grandeur but also the unpredictability and potential for crisis in our environment, my work challenges conventions of organic and artiﬁcial beauty. Distilling a sense of place from encounters with the natural and industrial worlds -- and especially their intersections – I try to evoke paradoxical, even contradictory emotions at the same time. Optimism and expansiveness, threat and distress, symmetry and entropy, creation and destruction.”

What was your inspiration for
Flora Ficciones Series - ‘Dendrobia Cattalaya Fertilia’
?

Flora Ficciones Series came about with my interpretation of patterns in plants slightly fantastic, appearing vividly real inspired by Californian gardens and our changing climate as I discover, record and experience on my many walks in the Central Coast Wilderness and Shorelines.

Describe your creative process?

As my work evolves and becomes more layered, I find myself exploring patterns in nature and floating shapes that are interwoven with a colorful under layer. I build my abstract compositions with an array of techniques and tools, seeking a balance between feral nature and its geometrical armature.

What are you working on currently?

Creating an installation for an interactive space to raise awareness about the fragility of our ecosystem focusing on local flora and fauna. A series of diaphanous banners that represent a walk through a symbolic forest of the Central Coast Wilderness environment.

What are your near/long term goals as an artist?

To continue to create and paint in my studio and work on more installation projects about the changing flora and fauna. I would like to collaborate with Botanical Gardens, Parks and Museums.