CARMEN SMITH: Night Swimming
Thurs., June 20 – Sun., August 18, 2024
COMMUNITY GALLERY
OPENING RECEPTION Thurs., June 20 | 5 – 8 pm
Admission $7 | Members FREE
Refreshments will be served.
SAVE THE DATE! Free Arts! Family Day Artist Workshop Sun., July 21 | noon – 4 pm
Carmen Smith explores how the built environment affects emotional and psychological states. Night Swimming, her current series presented at the Art and Culture Center/Hollywood, evokes a magical, otherworldly playground of glowing pools and colorful buildings. Her painterly compositions are kept simple, while her use of color is exaggerated to emphasize a liminal, dreamlike space.
Smith designs her paintings from memories and tropical urban architecture. Her use of familiar settings invites viewers to explore the nostalgic scenery, while her use of perspective positions them as if they are part of the scene. Integrating movements such as realism, expressionism, color field, and abstraction, Smith unites an array of formal aspects in a single dreamlike space. 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.
Carmen Smith is a visual artist based in Hollywood. 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 over 15 juried shows and fairs, including the 8th Annual All-Media Juried Biennial at the Art and Culture Center/Hollywood in 2017. Smith has been part of several group exhibitions including “The Portfolio Review Series,” Coral Gables Museum, and “Everything Old Is New Again,” Superfine! NYC Art Fair, New York. Recent solo exhibitions include, “Night Swimming," at Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA, and "Rushing Down," at the Coral Springs Museum of Art. In early 2024, she exhibited a solo collection of 15 paintings at the Imago Cultural Center in South Miami, titled “Color Pools.” Smith is a 2023-2024 recipient of the Broward Cultural Division Artist Grant.
