Forest Walk #1 (panel 1 of 4), oil on panel, 48x84 inches
-John, we'd love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today, both personally and as an artist.
As a sensitive teenager growing up in the western suburbs of Chicago, I made the local forest preserve my second home. I spent way too much time wandering the trails or just sitting on the banks of the creek surrounded by the thickets. I found the shapes, patterns and rhythms of the woods mesmerizing. I think that got burned into my psyche. As a young artist, flora is not a subject that you might take seriously right off the bat. When I was getting my MFA I was focused on printmaking where I was combining layers of collagraph and woodcut. I wasn’t explicitly doing “nature based” work at the time, but the visual influence of my time in the woods was pretty strong. Lots of swirling shapes and a focus on managed chaos were the rules of the day. Out of grad school, I put a more urban spin on the work, but the trees, weeds and thickets kept creeping in through cracks in the sidewalks and crumbling walls of my imagery. After a few years of that I just gave in and let the woods take over my work. I haven’t looked back since.
Northwest Bouquet #5, oil on panel, 36X24 inches
-You talk about painting places the way we remember them, not the way they actually look. What do you find most interesting about how memory twists things?
For myself, I find my memories of place and time to be abstract collages of glimpses, emotions and connections that are perfect fodder for the artist. Approaching a subject this way rather than worrying about creating an “accurate” depiction or a “vista” opens the gates and lets my own inner self come out in the work. The artist/mystic William Blake claimed that he called up a vision of a scene/place in his mind and then rendered from there. I think I must be a Blake contrarian.
Traditional Lake #4, oil on panel, 68X28 inches
-How does living in the Pacific Northwest continue to shape your relationship to forests, color, and the natural world?
The experience of getting lost in nature in the PNW is often a bit overwhelming. In twenty minutes you can be in a wild temperate rain forest where the surroundings cry out with vibrancy and life. When soaking it all in, I prefer to just relax and let it wash over me. When people look at my work, they always mention how “tropical” it looks. I think part of that is me pushing the greens and the rhythms in an effort to bring that feeling forward.
Northwest Bouquet #3, oil on panel, 36x24 inches
-Your surfaces feel beautifully layered and dimensional. When you’re working on a painting, how do you work with layers and surface to create that sense of depth?
As I mentioned, I started out as a printmaker, and I think that mind set stays with me in my approach to painting and the multimedia installations. I work in distinct layers and that often means that the new layers go right over the top of the old layers. Its an extremely inefficient and exciting way to work. The base layer is typically a traditional thin under painting which establishes a rhythm for the work. It should just feel right and could possibly stand alone as a work. I will then put on a very loose second layer which starts the direction forward of where the piece is going to go. At that point, I will cover the whole work masking material and then cut out shapes to preserve those first few base layers. After that more layers are added. Each one brings in a new plant forms. The upper layers of which there are at least three, sometimes many more, are a mix of “focused and refined” or “blurry and loose”. There is no official plan going in. It’s just a matter of what feels right. As a final step, I remove the stencils revealing the underpainting which creates a push and pull on the plane of the work that I really love. That final step is very much akin to lifting the paper off the press after you have run it through. You never quite know exactly what you are going to get!
Traditional Lake #2, oil on panel, 40x30 inches
-What's the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
Check out my website at www.johnsmither.net or my Instagram @smitherart.
If you are ever in the Seattle area, I typically also participate in the open studios during the monthly Georgetown Art Attack every second Saturday from 6-9 PM. I am in the Equinox Studios Factory Building at 6520 5th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98108.
Statement
My work focuses on the remembrance of intimate personal experiences of natural environments. For most of my career I have focused on forest and garden settings. I grab bits and pieces of recollections and construct assemblages of imagery to create an abstracted natural scene. As such, the final product is not a rendering of a place but rather a work which mimics how we recall a place and time. I mix hard edges, softened shapes, gestures and lines to pull the viewer’s eye across the surface. The paintings shown all have their origins in Pacific Northwest flora from various ecosystems.
Forest Walk #1 (panel 2 of 4), oil on panel, 48x60 inches
Bio
Traditional Lake #3, oil on panel, 24X12 inches
John Smither is originally from the Chicago area and grew up in the Midwest with an MFA in printmaking from Washington Univ. in St. Louis. While in grad school he also became interested in with working in video. Once out of school he moved back to Chicago where he continued to make relief prints, video, and large-scale drawings. His subject matter focused on the urban and wild landscapes of the area. At that time, due to technical limitations, he was never able to integrate these mediums into satisfying installations, so the different media were typically worked independently. After showing in Chicago at solo and group events for many years he moved to Seattle.
In Seattle, he continued to work on large-scale drawings and paintings based on the local environment of the Pacific Northwest. In 2010 he joined forces with another local artist, Zanetka Gawronski and started Core, a non-profit gallery, in Pioneer Square. At about the same time, with video tools being much more affordable and accessible, he also started to reintroduce video into his work. Fast forward to the present day, he creates integrated installations of paintings, woodcuts, and video of various sizes. He has shown his work at numerous venues including a live theatrical version at On The Boards in Seattle. His work is included in numerous private and public collections. John's studio is in Georgetown’s Equinox complex and is open for visits every second Saturday of the month and by appointment.