Valley of the Sun Print

Blu Smith was born in Kamloops in 1968 and grew up in Vernon, B.C. Canada. As a young man he moved to Victoria and completed his bachelor of fine arts at the University of Victoria in 1993. Victoria B.C. is where Blu lives and works with his wife and growing young family. His mature style as an abstract painter began as an exercise to free himself from the technical restraints of realism. Non representational abstract became a creatively freeing direction that evolved into his unique voice as an artist. "My work has always been predominantly non-representative but based from organic shapes with strong ties to nature. The organic structures are balanced with cavernous spaces and are filled with light and glow with an atmospheric quality. This group of paintings is really about the diversity of two different states and the transitions between the two. The real interest lies in bridging the gap between structure and space." His early influences included the abstract expressionists of the New York School. Most notably of these artists were Willem DeKooning, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell. Blu has exhibited his work throughout Canada, the US and Europe for several years.