January 14 through May 20, 2012
Fred Beans Gallery
You're strolling down a busy sidewalk, absorbed in your thoughts. Suddenly someone
walking the other way glances in your direction, you glance back, and your reverie
is broken. Two souls meet, briefly, then the moment passes, and without breaking stride
you each walk on.
"My work is about that moment," says painter Mavis Smith—"hinting at a narrative,
yet remaining intentionally elusive." Smith is part storyteller, part portraitist,
and part stage director; her images are like single frames of a movie with no beginning
and no end, as mysterious figures gaze out at the world with enigmatic calm, surrounded
by swimming pools, moody interiors, and distant skies. Often working in the ancient craft
of egg tempera, which was used by artists as diverse as Botticelli, Vermeer, and Andrew
Wyeth, she slowly builds up layer upon layer of translucent color. The resulting images
seem to radiate light from within, making the people who inhabit her luminous world both
arresting and slightly surreal. "Mystery combined with elegance is one of my goals,"
she says.
Bucks County resident Mavis Smith studied at the Pratt Institute in the 1970s, and has
exhibited her work in Holland and Switzerland as well as Santa Fe, New York City, and
at several venues in Bucks County. She is also a prolific illustrator and author of
children's books, having authored 10 and illustrated at least 75. Organized by the
Michener Art Museum, this exhibition samples a range of Smith's work, including both
paintings and works on paper as well as figurative images, still lifes, and her most
recent images of twisted and convoluted tree branches.
Artist Statement
One of the things I strive to express in my work is a sense of interrupted space and
time. We come into contact with dozens of people on a daily basis, catch their eyes for
a brief moment and move on, never knowing the intricate accumulation of experience that
forms their reality. My work is about that moment—hinting at a narrative, yet
remaining intentionally elusive. I am probably as much influenced by film
directors—Kubrick or Hitchcock, for example—as by other painters.
A lot of my paintings are done in egg tempera. Working on a true gesso panel, I
alternate brush strokes of thicker paint with washes of pure translucent color.
I build up hundreds of layers like this, until the end result has a luminous, ethereal
quality. Although labor intensive, it is a technique that I think enhances the slightly
surreal sensibility of my work. As for imagery, I rarely have a fully formed concept in
mind when I begin a painting. Instead, I start out with a face or pose that intrigues
me; then once I am caught up in the physical execution of the piece, other elements of
the composition suggest themselves.
Mavis Smith, 2010
RELATED EVENTS
Also See
Images, left to right: Mavis Smith, Sylph, 2010, egg tempera on panel, 17 x 10 inches, Collection of the Artist.
Mavis Smith, Thicket, 2010, 46 x 50 inches, oil and graphite on canvas, Collection of the Artist.
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