Robynn Smith

My work is a visual record of my connection to the world. Through pilgrimage to places of historical and psychological impact, I have collected a vast library of images that I use to travel between the present and the past, connecting the dots of humanity’s magnificent opportunities and repeated mistakes. Contrasting images are used to create detailed comparisons of the wretched and the sublime, life and death, light and dark. Lines blur and connections are made. Borders are drawn and crossed. Profoundly spiritual observations are presented alongside the moral bankruptcy of war.

My work explores these dualities through physical processes as well as through the use of specific imagery. The images combine with process to form the content. Through the processes of layered techniques, the paintings and prints reveal moments of beauty and horror. The tactile subtleties of surfaces contrast with images of catastrophe and destruction. Embedded photographic processes help to focus and sharpen the impact of the imagery, creating a surprising visual language that reaches places of submerged memory and subconscious reality.