The immersive experience of Kerrie Smith’s work in Portals and Pathways, at LAAA’s 825 Gallery through December 1st, is one that is both delicately beautiful and intimate.
The exhibition takes viewers on a journey inspired by Smith’s own daily walks along More Mesa in Santa Barbara. It’s a literal and emotional garden of delights that stretches from floor to ceiling with gauzily floating banners forming a kind of forest, printed with images of Smith’s paintings and sheer fabric with the lovely words of the artist’s own poetry.
The poetry was imprinted using hand-stamped wooden blocks that Smith carved. Both hanging, and positioned like small pools of nature on the floor, circular photographic images of the More Mesa’s wildlife and plants offer a joyous glimpse into Smith’s inspiration. Adding to the immersive quality of the viewing experience is an audio component recorded by the artist, providing the sounds of chittering animals and birds, wind, and ocean waves.
The artist says she’s inspired by “California light and the interaction of color,” and that she has a “passion for patterns in nature.” In her exhibited poetry she describes the nature around her – birds, butterflies, flowers, as containing a “quiet joy” that brings them “contentment and peace within their worlds.” These words could also describe the sensation of viewing her paintings.
Entering the gallery, it’s immediately striking how beautifully Smith captures the natural light she loves. The banners, interspersed with small, circular hanging discs that depict her photographs of nature, as well as the artist’s portal-like circular photographs on the floor of mandala-like stones, sand, and grasses, all contribute to a sense of the ethereal. Texturally, of course, the banners are “floating” from the ceiling; sunlight spills in the gallery windows. But like a fine cut-glass prism or natural gemstone, the light is refracted in and reflected through, Smith’s art.
“More Mesa,” she writes on one banner, “There is so much happening it could be called a field of dreams. It always surpasses our imagination.”
As beautiful as this experience is, it’s only the start. Smith’s artworks, a mix of circular and more conventional shapes, offers viewers a vivid palette and a details delicate brush, as she literally pulls the eye and heart into plants and flowers. The work is both sensual and magical, a lush combination that evokes the Eden that Smith has found near her home of 28 years through the prism of her brush.
In short, her paintings bring the mesa she loves so much to vibrant life, as she records and experiences them on her walks in nature.
Smith’s 24-inch circular wood panel, “Bellum Natura,” deftly blends acrylic and mixed media with gold leaf, the latter heightening the sense of the preciousness of the flora. Here, a vivid purple flower is the centerpiece of a swirl of greens and golds, with lines and shadows that evoke the sea-close location.
From the same series, her Flora Ficciones, comes the acrylic painting “Deena Dallancia Desconsita,” a dazzling pink and yellow sea plant surrounded by dark yet radiant blue water and nearly translucent pale green fronds of sea lettuce.
A combination of acrylic with mixed media, “Clytie Girasol Galaxis” is a glorious rust orange flower with a purple and gold center, surrounded by yellow/green blossoms, and what resembles floating orbs of yellow light, or a magnified seed pod, carried by air. A similar flower, but this image a startlingly deep pink, is aswirl on circular wood panel in “Carpos Medea.”
The titles of each piece are derived from the ancient Greek – for example, Clytie means glorious. They also recall Greek myths. Clytie was a water nymph who fell in love with Apollo, keeping her eyes always upon him as he moved through the sky. She was transformed and became a sunflower, always turning toward the glowing sun.
Each of these works are special, both for their color and depth, and for their luminous beauty. These paintings are Smith’s true poems and tributes to the nature she loves, a reverent tribute, to the earth we so often fail to appreciate – but which Smith cares about and for quite deeply.
If you can’t see this special show in person, visit many of her images online . Smith will also have one of her Flora Ficciones “Calendula Asterales,” as part of the Sullivan Gross Gallery’s annual holiday exhibition starting December 4th, with a reception on the 7th. Sullivan Gross is located in Santa Barbara.
- Genie Davis; images provided by gallery, artist, and by Genie Davis