Sarah Smelser creates prints with an abstract sensibility using transparent veils of color and thin Asian papers. Her work is grounded in drawing and references cartography, the body, cycles in nature, and everyday objects. Through layered processes and subtle material shifts, Smelser constructs images that are both spatial and intimate.
She has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions at Bridgewater/Lustberg & Blumenfeld and Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in New York. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections, among them the Library of Congress; the New York Public Library; the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University; the Ballinglen Museum of Contemporary Art; the J.P. Morgan Chase Art Collection; the Reader’s Digest Association; and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.
Smelser received her BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her MA and MFA from the University of Iowa. Additional solo exhibitions include the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art, Grand Rapids; Carnegie Mellon University; Bradley University; the University of Wyoming; Diablo Valley College; Luther College; and Spencer College. Her work has been featured in numerous invitational and juried exhibitions and presented at international art fairs including Art Frankfurt; Estampa, Madrid; EXPO Chicago; the Affordable Art Fair, New York; Art Miami; Red Dot Art Fair, New York and Miami; Art Santa Fe; Art Chicago; EDITION Chicago; the Boston Print Fair; the Baltimore Contemporary Print Fair; the Editions/Artists’ Book Fair; and the Los Angeles Art Show.
Her work has been reviewed in Art on Paper: The Journal of Prints, Drawings and Photography, Abstract Art Online, Monotype, Monoprint & Strappo Ezine, and has been reproduced in New American Paintings.
Smelser is Professor of Art and Associate Director of the Wonsook Kim School of Art at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois.
When asked about my work, I often say that it is about an abstract sensibility. This is an honest answer, but not a complete one. It is also about relationships, contrast, balance, and organizing space. I casually or perhaps coincidentally make reference to cartography, the body, cycles in nature, and mundane objects. I also allude to systems and structures that are both natural and man-made. More deliberately, I consider and depict conversations I have had, songs I hear, private jokes, anecdotes, and poems. Although these references are present in the work, either on the surface or deep down below, they do not inspire or initiate it. The work is generated by an urgent curiosity and is sustained by the excitement of discovery.
I am curious about how forms can speak to one another. I often categorize forms by placing them into opposing camps: fast or slow, solid or particulate, square or curved, impulsive or meditative. At times these forms of conflicting character simply exist together in a space and stand in contradiction to one another. Perhaps they read as different places, genders, or moments in time. Other times they relate, react, acknowledge one another, collide, veer apart, or perform an ambiguous task. My imagery is evidence of an interior conversation. It is also an effort to tread a line between elegant and awkward, deliberate and intuitive, skilled and naïve.
Sarah SmelserArtist's Statement