Thursday, November 12th, Click! co-owner and creative director Frances Smersh will be unveiling her latest collection of paintings at the West Seattle Art Walk. We are elated to have Frances’ new work grace our walls for the next two months!
Frances has a long-standing love of painting and drawing. Throughout her career as a jewelry designer, sketching was always at the forefront of the design process. Everything started on paper, and eventually made it’s way into the materials she loved: sterling silver, stained concrete and cork, steel and powder coat. But around four years ago, Frances put down the jewelry tools completely and fully embraced the adventure of mark making.
Painting has always been more of an exploration than a formally studied art for Frances – she would be the first to admit it. As an active member in the Pratt Fine Arts Center community, she would often find herself in various studios – painting, encaustics, drawing, jewelry, and blacksmithing. Inevitably she would would return to the two-dimensional, delving into varying materials and seeing how they intertwined on paper and wood.
That exploration is beautifully composed in Frances’ new collection. Acrylic, pencil, charcoal, and watercolor pencils blend together in delicately balanced work. Paint is applied to birch boards with brushes, paper towel, cloth, or bare hands – whatever feels right. An eraser is a vital tool, exposing previous layers and partially removing others, to build up a complex landscape of texture and line. The process is the image, and the image is the process. Each painting is a map of layers, of starts and stops and changed directions. They each tell the story of how they came to be.
Come join Frances and the rest of the Click! crew on Thursday, November 12, from 6-9p. Come raise a glass to celebrate a beautiful collection and a wonderful lady!
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