Samantha Keely Smith

Samantha Keely Smith’s large-scale polychromatic oil paintings resemble kaleidoscopic storms—they are both enchanting and unnerving. Smith attempts to map “psychological spaces” through softly applied layers of translucent paint, repainting and partially erasing her marks as she works to represent the intersection between dreams and reality. Interrogating themes of order and chaos through her use of light, Smith aims to “reconcile the inner world of instinct and emotions…with an external world that is both beautiful and hostile in its natural grandeur,” she says.