We were lucky to catch up with Kerrie Smith recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kerrie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Artist in Residence 2022-2023 Wildling Museum of Art & Nature, Solvang CA. -“Portals & Pathways” installation that focused on plant and animal/insect life compromised by our changing climate. These installations reference the flora and plants that are becoming extinct and changing in our Southern California region while re-imagining and valuing the possibilities of new colorful hybrids, insects and animals that could exist because of these changes. Using diaphanous fabrics to create banners in various sizes, printing and painting loose atmospheric background brush strokes suggesting elements, such as water rushing in a stream, the sun’s rays scorching our earth, or wild wind picking up just before a drenching rain. All powerful elemental forces of our changing planet that I discover, record and experience on my many walks and travels in the wilderness and other natural areas.

My “banners” rise out of the light and shadows that I witness through the seasons at various times of the day and early evenings. I recreate the ephemeral as organic nature-driven forms that reflect this shape-shifting landscape. These shapes, bounded by curves & fluid boundaries, mirror the constantly unfolding transitions of light and color. For me, they reveal optimism, expansiveness, creation, and the life force. I build my compositions with multiple layers and an array of techniques and tools as I seek a balance between the once tamed landscape and its original feral state.

Kerrie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m English, born in Somerset County, and now reside in Santa Barbara CA. I attended Central Saint Martins School of Art, London, England and received a B.A. with Honors in 3-Dimensional & Theater Design. After a successful career as a Theater-Set designer working in England, France, Holland and the United States collaborating with directors/designers Richard Eyre, Pamela Howard OBE, Ralph Koltai OBE, Ken Russell, John Tillinger and John Wells, I returned to painting and photography full time and now exhibit both in CA and nationally.

I’m honored to be this year’s 2022-23 Artist in Residence at the Wildling Museum of Art & Nature Solvang CA, exhibiting “Portals and Pathways” an ever-changing installation and landscape that is inspired by my daily walks at More Mesa Preserve in Santa Barbara California. This exhibition will be transferring to the North Gallery at the Los Angeles Art Association Gallery 825, La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles.  Opening Reception November 4th, 10am5pm, closes Dec 1st. Artist talk Nov 18th, 11AM Moderated by Peter Mays.

Currently I am active as an Artist and Art Educator and President of the Westmont College Ridley-Tree Museum of Art, Montecito CA.
I founded the non-profit organization Art Walk for Kids/Adults in 2002 with outreach programs for artists with disabilities and created art curriculums approved and used by the Santa Barbara County Arts Commission for at-risk/developmentally disabled youth and adults and Hope School Art Programs. I also Curate/Jury for Community Art shows/exhibitions, local schools and Art Groups.
My programs have received Congressional Awards from Congresswoman Lois Capps, and California State Assembly Woman Hannah Beth Jackson.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

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’m a multi-media artist, and my work is a reflection that describes the complex counterbalance of asymmetries found in the dynamic forces of nature. I explore balance, examining ‘Patterns’ in our environment. Subtle variations of complementary hues, and warm and cool rhythms of light create an equivalence on all sides of the canvas. Layers of color, sometimes precisely blocking color first, then building, patterning and layering again. I use an array of techniques and tools, seeking a balance between the more feral nature and its subjective precise 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. My work evokes paradoxical, even contradictory emotions at the same time. Optimism and expansiveness, threat and distress, symmetry and entropy, creation and destruction.” Beyond just recording nature my work involves feeling nature’s rhythms and changing seasons, I’m very influenced by my solitary walks and direct relationship with the environment in California.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My latest Series is “Flora Ficciones” in which influences of surrealism peek through my work. My personally devised gene bank of floral fantasies opens into a colorful world bursting with possibility. Identifying the essential nature of any object – animal, mineral or vegetable – allows one to supersede the possessiveness of dualistic mind. Originally this taxonomic tool was universally in Latin twice named, the first half genus and the second half more particular. But in the artist’s world, the boundaries of names, nature and other dimensions are challenged and embellished. Each name is further adornment for a piece of the beautiful, a primordial vehicle for transcendence. The entire presentation of name and image is meant to uplift and even confound, but most of all to liberate and enjoy. It is invitation to gently let go, in superficial and profound terms to detach from definitions for just a moment.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kerriesmithstudio.com
• Instagram: Kerrie_Smith_Artist
• Facebook: Kerrie Smith Studio
• Linkedin: Kerrie Smith Studio

Image Credits
Wildling Museum of art and nature Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara CA Launch LA/Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles Thomas Reynolds Gallery Gallery 825, LAAA, Los Angeles Atkinson Gallery Santa Barbara Melissa M organ Fine Art, Palm Dessert