The Deep End: Stephanie Smith

Major: BFA Painting

Year: Fourth

Inspiration: Yago Hortal, Gerhard Richter, Samantha Keely Smith and Lia Melia.

I paint referential landscapes that are ambiguous and mysterious. They are inspired by nature, most frequently the ocean. I create a sense of location and space and leave the rest up to the imagination. With each landscape, I examine what kind of emotional response it is able to evoke. My paintings typically focus on a sense of dichotomy or conflict: light vs. dark, calm vs. storm, fullness vs. absence and so forth. These landscapes are open to inquiry. What do you see? Where are you? How do you feel? I incorporate a sense of mystery in my work, leaving these questions for the viewer to answer.