ARTIST

Michael Smith

Artist's Statement

The source material for most of the images that appear in my work come from a memory of a particular place, a specific event, a particular time in my life and an interest in astronomy.   Most of the images first begin as quick drawings in a sketchbook.  I am not partial to where things come from because objects, shapes and forms have caught my attention in all sorts of different and unexpected places – such as an advertisement in an airport or bus shelter, a scene in a movie, a pattern on a rug, the design of a candlestick, iron railings or modern architecture.  I often do not have my sketchbook with me when objects first catch my attention, so the initial sketches tend to be, at best, memories of reality. 

I often redraw the same image over and over and sometimes put the drawings away for a while and return later with an even more distant memory of what the images looked like in their original context.  I was initially trained as a printmaker, and because of this I am drawn to graphic design, flat patterns and the relationship of shapes to other forms – such as the lines of plowed fields, the configuration of playing fields, suburban housing developments or the snaking and splitting of rivers when viewed from an airplane.  The land and celestial forms are incorporated with older images and memories of a time and place and together they co-exist to make collective compositions.  The works do not tell any particular story but are reminders of marked time.  Over the span of time images change, and as life can often imitate art, a number of things and personal interests find their way into my prints, paintings and mixed media works.   The images have uncertain life expectancies, living among other forms both young and old and eventually cycling out to make room for new memory images.  For me, this ebb and flow of imagery in my work is a lot like the changes and experiences in life itself.