Pandemic Perspective Through the Eyes of the Artist
“Making this work was as abrupt of a shift as going into the pandemic was, and I think the lead into that was significant to how to work evolved,” said Artist Trina May Smith at the closing reception on Feb. 10th for her art collection that was on display in the Everett Gallery in the Hewes Library.
Smith created the collection titled “A Pandemic Perspective”, in which she used a glass privacy block to distort pictures she had taken into kaleidoscope-like artwork. “Looking at things through the block, and thinking of things as a lens and a barrier is interesting, like innately in these blocks is this idea that it’s a privacy barrier for you and so I liked that metaphor of it being a barrier but also this idea of it being a lens that distorted information,” said Smith.
Being able to express the things she saw in her living space, which soon becoming her studio as well, came through a container of this distorted reality that nobody but Smith was seeing. “This is as much of my reality that you’re going to be able to access. “
“The longer I was deprived of the things I love- my job, working with students, actually being able to move around in the world, go to concerts, hang out with my friends, I think that depressed state brought up that deep longing for the mountains that was kind of always there but it was sort of intensified and amplified because I didn’t have these other things to pacify me.”
The freedom of being the distortion is liberating, but what about when COVID strikes, and the freedom to leave your home makes its way out? “I want to see what happens when I am the distortion lens, and when I am sort of letting go of that and seeing how that manifests. It’s a big question mark right now which is really exciting and really scary.”
You can follow Smith @trinamaysmith on Instagram, and on her website https://www.trinamaysmith.com
Ali Vorhies - Features Editor