Painting of the Day, October 17, 2011

My works attempt to merge ideas and memories.  Good art functions on many levels.  There is the surface appeal of subject, and below are layers that may be peeled off, revealing information about the individual artist and the psychology of his era.  There's the subject, but there is also the underlying theme. – Gary Ernest Smith

Gary Ernest Smith, Echo Canyon, 2009, oil on linen, 48 x 48 in. Private collection

Gary Ernest Smith was raised on a rural farm in Oregon and received his B.F.A and M.F.A. at Brigham Young University.  Considered a neo-regionalist who was influenced by Grant Wood and also by Maynard Dixon, Smith is nationally recognized artist whose work is in major collections and institutions and is the subject of a book by Donald Hagerty. Smith’s paintings find form in bold assertions of the western landscape, but appeal equally to an eastern audience because they capture a shared nostalgia—a collective memory of our foundation as an agrarian society.  The images tug at our most basic desire to return to an uncomplicated and honest period in time.