Bio
Carmen Smith is a visual artist based in South Florida. She is an Associate Artist at the Bakehouse Art Complex in Miami. She holds a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Richmond, VA, where she was awarded the Academic and Creative Excellence Award. She has participated in more than 15 juried shows and fairs, including the 8th Annual All-Media Juried Biennial (Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, 2017) and Spectrum Art Fair (Miami 2017). She has been part of several group exhibitions including The Portfolio Review Series, Coral Gables Museum (Miami, 2019) and Everything Old Is New Again, Superfine! NYC Art Fair Curated Gallery (New York, 2017). In 2021, she held a solo exhibition, “Night Swimming," at Second Street Gallery (Charlottesville, VA). She recently held her first museum show, "Rushing Down," at the Coral Springs Museum of Art in May 2022.
Artist Statement
Carmen Smith explores how the built environment affects emotional and psychological states. Night Swimming, her current series, evokes a magical, otherworldly playground of glowing pools and colorful buildings. Her compositions are kept simple, while her use of color is exaggerated to elicit an emotional response.
Smith designs her paintings from memories and familiar tropical urban architecture. She pieces together common features of the South Florida urban landscape including modern building facades, pools, balconies, windows, breezeblock, pool slides, and diving boards. Her use of familiar settings invites viewers to explore familiar scenery, while her use of perspective positions them as if they are part of the scene. An exaggeratedly bright, high-contrast color palette explores color as a form of leisure, a more nuanced consideration of how place affects experience, memory, and identity.
