Artworks by Tim Smith

I love painting, and constantly find the act of painting both fascinating and frustrating in the way it has an unpredictability about itself. I love the way that paint reacts with different surfaces, and how it can do unexpected things as it settles and dries. My work continues to change as I explore the way paint works and with new ideas appearing all the time but I don't tend to work in one way - I feel that there are so many good ideas appearing each day that to get stuck in one way of working is like placing too rigid a container on my practice, and instead I return to familiar themes in cycles. These things include the little blossom tree in the garden, the fascination of the night sky, and ideas associated with the landscape.

I’m drawn to edges, borders and apertures—the way a painting can feel like a window, a rug, or a fragment of a larger scene continuing beyond the frame. My influences range from painting and museums to mythology, night skies, comics, and remembered places, but the aim is always the same: to make an ambiguous space that holds your attention and changes as the light changes. I love working on sandpaper; the abrasive surface catches and scatters light, giving the colour a rough glow and a shifting depth.

I have a BA in Fine Art and an MFA, and have been. painting for the past forty years as I believe once you have been bitten by the painting bug, it’s with you for life. I've have exhibited nationally and internationally, and my work is held in private collections in the UK, Europe, the USA, Canada and Asia. I hope that in my work that I can create something new with a mixture of strange ideas and approaches involving working on unusual surfaces, because if I can surprise myself, then there is a chance that I might be able to surprise someone else looking at my responses to these ideas and subjects.

My work is mostly on a small scale, and I feel ideally suited to domestic spaces, being intimate in scale and in subject matter which will fit in different situations - from the hallway to the dining room, lounge, bedrooms, child's room. I hope you enjoy my work.