About

Artist Statement
My sculptural work supports the idea that we are stewards of nature, we do not have dominion over it. My work embraces an array of found and raw material, natural materials whenever possible, for their resonance. I value this resonance as it reflects the potency of matter in its vast array of forms and degrees of “animation,” which I search to echo in my art. I am most compelled by those experiences of nature that are both powerful and ephemeral, as if there were an exchange of vividness in any encounter that then quickly vanishes except for traces of vitality. Can this be embodied? I work mainly with my hands which mine the interior influences, allowing them to intermingle in all their limitless variations.

Tibetan Buddhism posits that every phenomenon, physical or spiritual, has four aspects: the outer, the inner, the secret, and the ultimately secret. Seeking out this mysterious inner life–the secret of how things function–moves my art forward. The physical and spiritual elide as I search for the corresponding sentience within living things and objects.
My childhood was spent outdoors, in fields and woods where I learned to let go of ordinary habits of looking–to be still and wait–in order to experience the true vividness of nature. A magical complexity of the worlds within worlds of flora and fauna was revealed. I still rely on this practice of slow seeing: a blindness and then vision.

We are at a unique point in our history, one of absences. My work reflects this sense of loss and regret while simultaneously acknowledging awe at the gifts our planet has provided. I wonder if the human species might also disappear, or is this moment one of possibility, in which, finally experiencing a profound sadness for these losses, we at last take ultimate responsibility as caretakers of this planet?

Bio
Rhonda Smith has been immersed in visual study all her life. She graduated from St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY, and studied at the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Cooperativa Mosaicisti, Ravenna Italy. She is currently a member of the Kingston Gallery, Boston, MA, the Pell Lucy Collective/Shim Art Network, and on the board of Transcultural Exchange. Until about seven years ago she was a painter but now has devoted herself to sculpture and installation. Her work incorporates her abiding love of science, the land and water, and the sacred. The idea in science that any dynamic system can be in a state of disequilibrium is an underlying concept in her work and process. Of particular concern now is that our
planet has lost its wild spaces, we are in a continual state of displacement, and too many species have disappeared. She has had many ecology -based one person shows and participated in a large number of group shows, especially concerned with the planet, mapping, earth sciences and loss of habitat. Her work has been seen in Boston, MA, New York, NY, Maine, London, and Tokyo and is in many corporate collections.