Jeff Smith

Working with acrylics and mixed media, I start with an under painting, slowly building a history full of character. As I'm developing the piece I often will scratch through or peel back to expose a story beneath the surface. Like people, we present a finished product to the world, a veneer hiding the multiple stories, happy and sad, simple or complex, that accumulatively build our personalities and create the individuality and soul.

I've been asked why many of faces I paint aren't happy or smiling' The typical say cheese' smiles that obscure the worries, sadness, introspection of our daily lives. My people are captured in the real life lived. Pensive, or otherwise engaged with an internal conversation. The emotion is reflected in their eyes. It's always been a fascination to take a snapshot of hope, desire, dispair, worry.

Our eyes are a symbol of seeing what it is in front of us, but are often blind to the truth that lays hidden in the folds of living.