News Blog

Meet Kerrie Smith

A conversation with Canvas Rebel

 

Kerrie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Artist in Residence 2022-2023 Wildling Museum of Art & Nature, Solvang CA. -“Portals & Pathways” installation that focused on plant and animal/insect life compromised by our changing climate. These installations reference the flora and plants that are becoming extinct and changing in our Southern California region while re-imagining and valuing the possibilities of new colorful hybrids, insects and animals that could exist because of these changes. Using diaphanous fabrics to create banners in various sizes, printing and painting loose atmospheric background brush strokes suggesting elements, such as water rushing in a stream, the sun’s rays scorching our earth, or wild wind picking up just before a drenching rain. All powerful elemental forces of our changing planet that I discover, record and experience on my many walks and travels in the wilderness and other natural areas.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Winter Portals & Pathways,

 Installing WINTER the final season of Portals & Pathways, Wildling Museum of Art & Nature, Solvang CA. Artist in Residency March 2022-Feb 2023.

Autumnal Portals & Pathways

Autumnal shift in the Michele Kuelbs Tower Gallery, Wildling Museum of Art and Nature, Solvang CA. Smith’s multi-sensory work is inspired by her daily walks through Santa Barbara’s More Mesa, and is on view through February 2023. See the work during visiting hours weekdays, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. and weekdays, 10a.m.-5p.m. Closed Tuesday & Wednesday.

 

Lotusland Santa Barbara CA-Annual Fundraiser 'BIRDSONG'-A new Painting by Kerrie Smith ‘Ganna's MidSummer Nights Dream’

Lotusland Celebrates ~ Birdsong

July 23 @ 3:30 pm - 8:00 pm

This year’s Lotusland Celebrates gala will soar beyond your wildest imagination and flights of fancy!

On Saturday, July 23 from 3:30 until 8:00 in the evening Lotusland Celebrates: Birdsong will be a multi-sensory event featuring live art auction, craft cocktails, curated wines, a gourmet meal, and live music.

Santa Barbara Independent

https://www.independent.com/2022/05/23/new-exhibits-at-solvangs-wilding-elverhoj-museums-bring-the-outdoors-in-focus/

Arts & Entertainment

New Exhibits at Solvang’s Wilding & Elverhøj Museums Bring the Outdoors in Focus

Portals & Pathways to More Mesa and Dramatic Views of Greenland

Kerrie Smith, Portals & Pathways, Installation view at the Wildling Museum, April 2022. | Credit: Courtesy

By Leslie Dinaberg
Mon May 23, 2022 | 10:53am

Kerrie Smith, Portals & Pathways, Installation view at the Wildling Museum, April 2022.

The vast beauty of the trails and sweeping ocean and mountain views of Santa Barbara’s More Mesa open space provide inspiration for Portals & Pathways, a yearlong installation at the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature in Solvang. Artist Kerrie Smith (kerriesmithstudio.com) designed the site-specific work to be an evolving meditation on the changing seasons and local flora and fauna. A resident of the More Mesa neighborhood for two decades, Smith’s daily walks have covered the more than 340 acres of beautiful trails and pristine beaches that make up this stunning part of our coastline.

A combination of mobiles, banners, paintings, and photography, Smith said she hopes her art will inspire others to “take their own journeys and joyous walks” into More Mesa.

“My banners rise out of the light and shadows that I witness through the seasons at various times of the day and early evenings. I recreate the ephemeral as organic, nature-driven forms that reflect this shape-shifting landscape. These shapes, bounded by curves, mirror the constantly unfolding transitions of light and color,” said Smith. “For me, they reveal optimism, expansiveness, creation, and the life force. I build my compositions with multiple layers and an array of techniques and tools as I seek a balance between the once tamed landscape and its original feral state.”

Orange County Center for Contemporary Art CALIFoRNIA, SURREALISM NOW

Juror: Andi Campognone,

Director of MOAH, Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA

Exhibition July 2 - August 20, 2022

at OCCCA, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art

117 N Sycamore St., Santa Ana, CA 92701, USA

OPENING RECEPTION: July 9, 2022

The Art Walk in July will be on July 9, 2022 because July 2 is the 4th of July weekend.

Kerrie Smith’s Banners, Flora Ficciones- 1. Ganna's Glorietta 2. Jubilantia Majorium 3. Dellancia Desconcita will be installed.

The Art Walk in July will be on July 9, 2022 because July 2 is the 4th of July weekend.It has risen from the crypt of art history, the only art movement relevant to our tortured times. Surrealism’s rank perfume permeates the galleries, the cinemas and the streets. Surrealism Now is a sinister cabaret, full of dreamers with eyes closed, sitting at the same table as insomniacs with nightmares. If you hear the siren song of Surrealism emanating from the angel trumpets of despair, indulge your insatiable desire for a gesture of defiance against everything that’s false and stupid: submit something sublime to Surrealism Now in the medium of your choosing --- painting, drawing, illustration, sculpture, assemblage, collage, photography, video, fashion, performance, street art, installation, and the artists’ book. Surrealism Now carries the torch for mad love, psychedelic art, crazed science, Medievalism, Romanticism, Victoriana, Punk, the uncanny, the grotesque, obsolete technology, and the eternal clash of the sacred with the profane. Slake our juror’s thirst for the strange elixir of your delirious and singular vision.

Robert Mintz

Flora Ficciones Banners

Portals & Pathways, Michele Kuelbs Tower Gallery, Wildling Museum of Art and Nature, Solvang California

PRESS RELEASE (SOLVANG, CA) – The Wildling Museum of Art and Nature is pleased to announce a new yearlong, site-specific installation featuring Santa Barbara-based artist Kerrie Smith. Portals & Pathways, designed for the Michele Kuelbs Tower Gallery, is on view April 2022 through early 2023. Opening Reception May 22nd 4-6pm. 1511-B Mission Drive Solvang, CA. RSVP Lauren@Wildlingmuseum.org

Smith’s multi-sensory installation features flowing banners printed with Smith’s vivid abstract paintings inspired by daily walks along Santa Barbara’s More Mesa. Interspersed are sheer banners featuring personal poetry hand-stamped with wooden blocks carved by Smith. Circular “portals” hang from floor to ceiling with Smith’s photography of local flora and fauna, as well her paintings and impressions on the trails that surround More Mesa. Ambient sounds of crashing waves, animal life, and encounters recorded by Smith also invite visitors to take in the experience of walking along the trails as nature and human life collide and overlap.

Smith will continue to update the gallery with the changing seasons, transforming the space throughout 2022-2023 as part of the Wildling Museum’s inaugural artist-in-residence program for the Michele Kuelbs Tower Gallery.

 
 
 

Sullivan Goss Annual 100 Grand Show 2021

Sullivan Goss Annual 100 Grand Show Dec 2-Jan 16th 2021. Honored to be included for the 4th consecutive year. Flora Ficciones Atlanticus. Patterns in nature, slightly fantastic appearing vividly real. inspired by my walks in California.