Anne Smerdon breaks NYC
12 April 2011
Fulton Trotter Architects would like to share some exciting news, whilst also congratulating Anne Smerdon, an architectural student in our Tweed office.
When Anne isn’t doing architecture, she is playing with her water colours and creating masterpieces. Anne’s style explores many forms of life, nature and emotion. The vibrant colours and the attention to detail explains a wonderful story in each painting. Anne also has a love for birds, you can see this in 90% of her work, by including them, they create an added sense of beauty to the work.
In late 2010, Anne was selected as one of two artists from the 19 KAREN gallery to be exhibited in New York gallery, Raandesk. This is a very exciting step for Anne and her love for art.
Currently, you can see many of her pieces in real life at the 19 KAREN gallery at Mermaid Beach, Gold Coast.
To see more of Anne’s beautiful work, below is a list of galleries and dates:
HOMAGE TO FRIDA
@ 19 Karen Gallery Contemporary Artspace
19 Karen Avenue,
MERMAID BEACH, GOLD COAST
Opening night 4 June
4 June – 30 June 2011
A PORTRAIT A PART
@ Raandesk Gallery,
16 W. 23rd Street, 4th Floor
NEW YORK NY 10010
Opening night 9 June
9 June – 23 July 2011
SYMBIOSIS (Anne Smerdon solo show)
@ 19 Karen Gallery Contemporary Artspace
19 Karen Avenue,
MERMAID BEACH, GOLD COAST
Opening night 24 March
24 March – 21 April 2012
Artist Statement
Aristotle once said that “the aim of art is to present not the outward appearance of things, but their inner significance, for this, not the external manner and detail, constitutes true reality.”
While I in no way claim to possess thoughts superior to those of the great philosopher, I hold a contrary opinion.
I am in no way concerned with capturing the inner identity of my models, nor am I concerned with portraying true reality. I believe that art has the ability to transport the viewer to a place existing outside of normal reality and much like those of the Aesthetic and Art Nouveau movements of times past, I believe that arts key objective is to be aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
Accordingly, portraiture is a means for me to create visual narrations of fictional characters that I invent. While my portraits are based on a real-life muse, I see each model objectively. I may see a beautiful girl crossing the street and approach her to pose for a forthcoming artwork, yet I see her face and figure as mere armature. The essence, inner identity and individual tales of my characters are not captured from real life but rather they are created within my imagination and represented by the visual embellishments attached to each girl.
My portraits tell tales of autodidactic girls who have bridged the animal and human worlds to become one with nature, symbiotically nurturing fauna and flora and in turn, being nurtured by fauna and flora. I am fascinated with the notion of the fictional feral child of tales such as Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and Henry De Vere Stacpoole’s The Blue Lagoon.
Like portraiture throughout history, I feel my artworks are important records and remembrances of these characters I have invented from the real-life muses from which they were inspired. They also document the architectural details, landscapes and animal personalities which influence my visual narrations at that time.