|
home
portfolio
exhibitions
& recognition
artist statement
about the artist
press contact
"Certain pieces... stand apart. Dinah
Maxwell Smith's simplified, luminous, close-in views of a stark
French courtyard door, a shadow, and an adjacent window are small
gems..."
-Phyllis Braff, New York times
"Paintings of nostalgia and charm... a generally muted palette and a
tersely handled technique combine to make these evocations as
pictorially strong as they are visually endearing."
-John Gruen, New York Magazine
Dinah Maxwell Smith
studied painting at the Academie Julian in Paris and received her
BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has been widely
exhibited in and around New York City including such institutions as
the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York, and the Slater Art
Museum in Norwich, Connecticut. Her works are represented in the
permanent collections of the Bridgeport Museum of Art, Chemical
Bank, and the Laurence Rockefeller Collection.
In the loose painterly
style characteristic of the Long Island School, Dinah uses her
sensual handling of paint to depict naturalistic environments. Her
descriptive brushwork helps create a visual statement defining color
and light, perhaps better phrased, "color as light."
Dinah utilizes
common motifs of everyday life as vehicles of expression. Her
captured moments in time pleasantly stimulate our memories - an
afternoon stroll, a day at the beach. As viewers we are instantly
comfortable with these works, they can both aesthetically please
while retaining artistic integrity.
Skillfully handled,
Dinah's brushwork carries the eye in and around the canvas uniquely
recording each image. We see an obvious love of the paint
itself, the individual studies becoming almost abstract in handling.
Her use of color is refreshing - each object is meticulously
described in varying shades of the same hue placed directly next to
each other. Similar to other impressionist painters, Dinah avoids
the use of black: rather contrast is achieved by use of color
opposites.
|