Colette Odya Smith
Artist Statement
My painting is my prayer. I offer what I have been moved to create as my service. My process is my sanity. My intent is to create works that attract and deeply satisfy.
The journey moves from quiet walks or stolen glimpses with my camera, through refining the composition, to a watercolor underpainting and final application of soft pastel; culminating, hopefully, in the work residing where it is useful. The progress comes of persistent honing, of eye and hand, as well as of mind and heart.
I am intrigued by the puzzle of random beauty and my painting is an attempt to solve this puzzle. There seems to be endless variety and intricacy within even the simplest natural occurrences. This evidence of a firmly imbedded order reveals something I know I love deeply but cannot name.
My response to this complexity, especially as found in wild places, is to work with multiple concerns in play. So, for example, while I love the way Rothko focused on the pure essence of color relationships, color in my imagery is inextricably bound to form. The primal structure determining those forms is as much my subject as is the ‘look’ that structure gives a thing, because therein lies meaning. I push the congruency I find between abstraction and realism, because they are for me, a mere hair’s breath apart. I create with the same elements of dust and water that I am drawn to paint, the same ones I am made of, exploring in a material way, my relationship to the image and the actual objects.
My current interest revolves about edges. Whether created with lines, masses sitting next to each other, colors and values clashing, or figure and ground, it is always where the action is. As in life; the edge is where there is going to be a change, where there is advantage, where things are not smooth, or where there is need to be alert. Issues of tension and resolution, identity and boundaries come to mind in the edges of the forms in the paintings. I am pursuing this idea further through the use of ripped or molded paper to create a literal break in the two-dimensional surface on which the pastel is laid. The contrasts created by the use of media such as gold leaf or hand-made papers are among other ways I am exploring these concepts.
Back to main page...
All works copyright © 2005 Colette Odya Smith, all rights reserved