Mary Claire Smith
Mary Claire Smith’s work is rooted in a sense of place within the natural environment, employing abstracted forms and lines reminiscent of botanical life to evoke imagined worlds – below water, above the earth – a return to something ancient and deep, wild and mysterious: of nature and of the body. She studies patterns of growth and rhythm, dialogues of expansion and contraction. Mary Claire works in series, repeating and revisiting archetypal forms: tree, plant, mountain, cloud, cave, circles and spheres. A current series uses simple, pared-down forms depicting the elemental forces of water, earth, fire and air. Another employs a daily walk, to create a journal of shapes and marks: land forms, patterns on water, cloud formations. Her work spans printmaking, painting and drawing, using Japanese and Khadi papers, botanical and traditional inks, paint, printing from woodcuts and grains, drypoint and screen print.
