Ruth Helen Smith says she never thought she’d be painting trees, but it is not the tree that she’s interested in, it’s the glimpsing through the tree that animates her. There is some academic reasoning for this - the relationship between abstraction and figuration, flatness and depth, materiality and the immateriality of the imagination, meaning and communication, Art History... But there is something else to be attentive to which is just out of sight, occasionally glimpsed, and which might just be glimpsing back.
"Plein air painting is a way of leaving everything behind, to feel free to be alone, to hear and see better. Our existence is shared in the web of relationships and tensions, even bonded as layers of paint and brush marks. In this age of digital media, of being constantly watched, of feeling that it didn’t happen if there isn't a photo to share, my painting is a reaction to step back from the confusion and make real, material works that are in fact refracted experience made tangible." Ruth Helen Smith
