Stephanie Smart: drawing and paper collage

Biography

I have been awarded the chance to be Artist-in-Residence at The Muse Galery from 15th January 2013. I will sponsored by: Great Art, Seawhites Art supplies (see: www.greatart.co.uk and www.seawhite.co.uk)

Overview: My work seeks to examine and make tangible the meeting point between mind and body, consciousness and physicality. I am particularly interested in the bridge between the physical and metaphysical and the ways in which these two aspects of being human can be seen to be interpenetrating. Since finishing my MA in Cosmology at the end of 2009 my art work has reflected my study of the metaphysical philosophies of ancient and modern man more than ever. Stylistically my influences have always included: Stained-glass, the Persian and Indian miniature traditions, Illuminated manuscripts and maps, Icons and Calligraphy.

Drawings: After training in Decorative Arts my practice as an artist was for many years primarily concerned with producing stained-glass and glass sculpture. In this way I have educated my eye in respect of pattern, geometry and colour whilst nurturing an ever increasing personal fascination with the concept of translucency. After having looked directly through my primary medium for quite some while I have recently found within myself the need to step back somewhat, to consider and thereby compare figurative detail/external impression; thereby to try to stand on the bridge between the two realms, inner and outer. I am beginning to understand the work of the (visual) artist as visual philosophy (looking so deeply at that which is external to oneself that eventually you can see someway into and through it). I hope that something of this will come across in my work as I strive to combine portraiture with symbolism. I believe in the discipline of drawing and am delighted to have returned to the primary practice of my childhood.

Paper collage - Kaftans: I am interested in representing the ephemeral qualities of human beings (memories, thoughts, feelings, visual impressions, ideas and imaginings). I see people as layered, collated, collaged and constructed works of art. I believe we each “wear” personally collaged narratives around ourselves. Sometimes these are formed consciously and sometimes we exhibit previously hidden layers of our unconscious impressions but either way, like auras or second skins, these can be read by others. Inspired by the paper Kaftan of a Sultan I saw in a museum in Istanbul I have chosen to produce items of clothing (the most material aspect of external impression) from paper. Of the Turkish tradition of which the Sultan’s Kaftan was an example one commentator wrote that such a vestment was decorated with: "Verses from the Quran as well as prayers. It was worn not to get magical effects but…as a form of worship to put the mind in a particular mode of devotion. It was worn particularly in times of battle…to have control over ones own mind and to therefore not commit excessive acts… forbidden by the very words inscribed on the shirt one wore.” My pieces are formed as a collage of illustrated and written details that complete visual narrative as an (at least apparently) wearable garment. The garments are then displayed behind glass in order to stress the ephemeral and fragile nature of our impressions. The simplicity of the Kaftans shape I see as reminiscent of the hospital gown and hope that this correspondence (+ the fragile medium of the paper) suggest the fragility of both the particular emotional aspect of the psyche being portrayed and the physical body one might find inside. By producing work which suggests the body covered by the layer of impressions of the psyche I hope to draw attention to the interdependence of our inner and outer realities.