Alyssa Smith
Goldenrod and Vichy check, 2023
Monoprint, 19.5" x 25.5"
My most recent work has been a series of seemingly simple images depicting moments in time or memories, often of plants or flowers with healing properties. I see aspects of mundane life as portals into deeper wisdom. Many aspects of the natural world have become anonymous despite deep histories. There is something to be gained in the act of noticing and naming the small things. Environment and our relationship to it presents a springboard from which we learn of our own story and cycles of life. Imagery acts as a mirror, describing more a state of mind or emotion than the thing itself. Is it the idea of depicting the invisible energetic qualities of her subjects that I am most interested in.
Through a personal journey of healing, I've been exploring the healing properties of various plants, often considered weeds, as well as the energetic properties of color, wanting to visualize the invisible properties of these plants and how they may affect the world around them. I like to think of these living things in our environment that are grounded in the earth—how they shift and grow and yet have no language that we can hear. They don't communicate the way humans do, though they can have their own sorts of communication.
As a Guest Artist at Tusen Takk in spring 2023, I spent a month in the printmaking studio testing color combinations and finding which ones start to capture the vision. I didn’t follow a true monoprint process as I have been printing anywhere from 2 to 4 layers of different colors on top of each other. It is always a bit of an adventure as there is no set plate to work off of like there is in lino cut, intaglio and woodcut—this process always brings unexpected surprises which I love.
ARTIST BIO
Alyssa Smith grew up in both France and the United States. She received a bachelor’s degree in art from Taylor University and also studied drawing and painting in France and Italy. After college, she taught high school drawing and painting in Germany for five years before going back to school and receiving an MFA in Painting from the New York Academy of Art. Life then took a rather unexpected detour. In 2015, because of a chemical sensitivity to paint, painting was put to the side while she pursued other interests. She worked on organic farms in South Carolina, New York and then Northern Michigan, traveling back and forth between France and Michigan during the off season. Experiencing the natural world, the seasons and weather in such a close way shifted her work significantly when she returned to painting. She now lives and works in Traverse City.
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