Fire and Ice Painting

Bucks County, Pennsylvania resident Karen A. Smith creates drawings and paintings in a variety of media. Using her daily life to inspire her art, Smith is interested in the spaces between objects, situations and conversations and what happens in those spaces. Her abstract images are intuitively inspired by nature and the mark making is spontaneous. Building up layers and then breaking through them to uncover and reveal certain clues and hints to life's puzzles.Smith makes many drawings and believes that we are all connected by the marks(drawing) that we make. Some drawings she makes are more careful and contain gradations to add softness and to help join opposites. Karen believes that the process of creating art and the interaction/relationship with people involved in the project are as important as the completed piece of art. She has worked as an artist and teacher in healthcare settings, using art as a tool to help build community, Smith taught in the Pennswood Village - Newtown Friends intergenerational program. She has also taught drawing in the Graphic and Industrial Design foundation level programs in the College of Art and Architecture at Northeastern University and Wentworth Institute of Technology both in Boston, Massachusetts. Her art is in private collections in the United States and Switzerland.