81 of 83

|

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2011 GALLERY&STUDIO 23
It stands to reason that the art of Beverly
A. Smith is so brilliantly saturated
with sunlight, since she lives and works
in Sarasota Florida. In fact, the painting
that she calls �Sarasota� could be seen as
her signature work, given its exuberant
chromatic explosions of yellow and verdant
green strokes, which
fi ll the canvas with a
sun-drenched sense of
energy.
Like other female
abstract painters before
her �� most particularly
Helen Frankenthaler and
Joan Mitchell �� Smith
presents a lush, positive,
and life-affi rming
answer to the miasma of
male angst that hangs
heavily over so much
contemporary art. A
delightful effusiveness is
what animates Smith�s
work in particular, with
its veritable showers of
luminous color. Indeed,
even though she is still
too young for her career
to have begun at the
time that the c...

My expressionistic work is intuitive. As I add more paint, movement, shape and texture to the work, it develops itself and becomes a painting. The experience is not a deliberate, intellectual one, but a journey, from beginning to end. I enter the painting feeling like climbing in and tiptoeing around. This is how I get the depth in my work by experiencing it first hand. I am part of the painting. Initially my early works were paintings about my children and my emotional response to them. Trying to teach myself that they too have their own journey; trying to always love, support and accept them for the young adults they are becoming. Often I am not sure what I am expressing until I am about two thirds done, and then realize the...