Smith
Jan Mirenda Smith - Artist
My recent work evolved during the pandemic, when the world was not only confronted with a deadly virus, but our vision was also consumed by extraordinary events. From this period, the Storming Series emerged using dramatic landscapes from photos I have taken to create pastel and watercolor images that wrestled with the changing atmospheric storms of our time caused by climate change.
As an artist, I am passionate about impact. I want my work to resonate with a viewer as something that is evocative, serving as a call to action and a catalyst for change. In examining the impact of climate change, I use the threatening appearance of landscapes to signal alarm and warning, or the serene bucolic reference for landscape that may be threatened. The pleasant fleeting scene is only that, fleeting and if not cared for, it may be gone.
My studio work consists of both watercolor and pastel, focusing on landscape, sometimes painted plein air and more often from photos I have taken outdoors. I use landscape as a metaphor to mark brief periods in time, transitions, change and emotional impact.
In my Storming Series, I examine the climate change driven eruptions that have charred and windswept and washed away landscapes, structures and lives. Aspects examined more closely seek reasons and prevention for wildfires; air quality; water related issues or the lack of it in areas of severe drought; as well as rising sea temperatures, glacial melt and warming of permafrost.
The imagery questions not only why, but what can we do to change the course of decline rather than feel powerless as the chain of cause and effects magnifies. As my work evolves, I hope to not only draw attention to the issues that threaten our surroundings, our water and food sources, but also encourage viewers to act in simple, imaginative ways that may find solutions to slow the devastation.
What A Wonderful World Series presents images of tranquility; bucolic landscapes, or lovely flowers and plants: as if the images capture a static moment in time. They may evoke or represent a memory, or even documentation of something meant to be preserved because it might be nearly lost.
By engaging in my art practice, I hope to instill new awareness to a timely and imposing subject.