Now at bG Gallery, The Cat’s Meow isn’t just an exhibition title – it’s a celebration of a show, a sweet, fun, impressive solo from artist Linda Smith. There are paintings, ceramic sculptures, and most impressively lush ceramic totems, slim towers that offer viewers multiple kitties or in some cases, humans, and pups, towering up to 6 feet in height.
Above, inside Smith’s studio
Each living creature offers a face full of wisdom and a presence that exudes that species’ essence. The cats look curious, intelligent, willful; the humans thoughtful, observant, or contemplative; while the puppies look ready to leap, play, or curl up on your feet. In short, each creature has a presence that draws the eye and the heart. There’s a magical quality to her works.; whether paintings or ceramics, Smith covers every surface with color and pattern, willing the viewer to experience the fun on offer, and enter into her world.
A joyous use of vibrant color is Smith’s style, along with a textural use of pattern that hums with energy and enthusiasm for her subjects. It’s that vibrance that makes her images come alive. Smith is as prolific as she is joyous, with a wide variety of whimsical, lustrous works that are expressive, charming, and utterly unique.
Smith describes her exhibition as consisting of “my new large ceramic totems, smaller ceramic sculptures and paintings I have created over the years. This show has recurring themes of mine, [such as] faces, figures, cats, birds, and dogs…my daily life expressed in an adventure of bold color and pattern.”
It’s a delightful crazy quilt of her life, saturated with a sense of excitement and jubilance. You could just call it fun. Stacked orange and blue heads are topped with a brilliantly plumed bird in one totem; in another, striped, dotted, and flowered humans rise watchfully.
Each work has the elements of a fantastical fairy tale brought to life, in which cats and humans coexist in an endlessly bountiful world punctuared by dots, dashes, lines, and patterns. Her bold use of yellows, oranges, reds, and blues brings a joyous buoncy to her images.
Whether small ceramic busts of felines, or wild rainbow rays vibrating from and around a woman’s face with a playful outline of a cat above it, Smith speaks to happiness and hope.
Both are welcome subjects. In fraught times, happiness can be in short supply, but it’s doled out delightfully here. Smith captures the playful, inquisitive, and mysteriousness of the feline, along with the cavorting of canines, and a contemplative view of human nature, all in a cavalcade of color.
The exhibition held a press preview last weekend, but opens to the public this coming Saturday, September 6th, from 4 to 7 p.m. The artist talk and walk through will take place September 13th from 3 to 5 p.m.
If you’re looking for some unadulterated joy in your life, come take a romp around the art world.
- Genie Davis; images provided by Linda Smith and bG Gallery
I’ve seen her work and I think it’s fabulous. I think the descriptions offered are accurate. Check it out, have some fun and see if you agree.
Great show!!!
I am so impressed with your unique style, and design of your work, and the passion you put into each individual piece, matched with your great personality will always inspire others and bring greatness to you and your work. Keep that shining bright smile Linda. You are one in a million.