hollymsmithportfolio-blog

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The weather was blurry and wet and nauseous most of the week, but it made the streets and the sakura trees dark and sleek, and my bold colors stood out the way i like.  This dress is vintage Lord & Taylor but and obvious ode to Yayoi Kasuma that i had to bring along.  ^_^ 

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We had a blast being a cartoon girl gang with the Jump From Paper Travel 2015 collection.  Rosie Simmons Shot Aubrey and I as Modern Misfits in Center City Philadelphia. 

With Aubrey Loftus as Modern Misfits for Jump from Paper shot by Rosie Simmons

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With Aubrey Loftus as Modern Misfits for Jump from Paper shot by Rosie Simmons 

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With Aubrey Loftus as Modern Misfits for Jump from Paper shot by Rosie Simmons

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With Aubrey Loftus as Modern Misfits shot by Rosie Simmons

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Rooftop hang with Rosie Simmons, 2015

wearing free people and modern misfits 

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UPDATED!

by Rosie Simmons @ Modern Misfits makeup by Charlette Hove

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me by Charlette Hove in Balboa Park’s Cactus Gardens, San Diego, July 2015

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Charlette Hove by me in Balboa Park’s Cactus Gardens

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Kate Perkins, local Painter, Museum goddess and fellow UArts Alumn recently welcomed me as a part of her “Like and Subscribe” girl power gallery opening at Goldilock’s Gallery. I was Kate’s in-house Youtube muse that night, sans laptop and teenaged-girl bedroom, posed at a long purple table topped with fresh makeup and a plastic hand mirror.  The performance was Kate’s concept- a context for the paintings and an elevation of the acts performed in them.  I was sat to repeatedly experiment with different products and looks throughout the show, and scrub them off for the guests as they met kate’s girls: frozen in removed portraits of their glamour guru diaries. The table was our favorite part as in the end it was covered in rouge smeared wipes and tissues, uncapped lipstick tubes and brushes full of glitter. Oh, and the photos…

The paintings posted above are Morgan (2014) and Jacky trio (2015) both oil on panel. you can see more from Kate here, and if you are interested in buying her work or possibly being the subject of it, contact either of us!

Kate’s Artist Statement and Her statement for the Show are another highlight and i can’t resist passing them along:

“These paintings explore the way girls interact with the internet.

This work has become especially preoccupied with the rise in recent years of the Youtube vlogger trend, wherein young women make and share video blog posts of their unique everyday lives. The internet has become an identity-forging tool of young women, a place to speak their opinion and formulate their sense of self in an environment where they have every historical and contemporary influence available to them. I have an optimistic view of what this online cultural access can bring to their lives, and that optimism is reflected in the respect I show for my subjects.

Through over-saturated colors and captured movement, I attempt to create a vivid and dreamlike atmosphere in my paintings. The hues are not shy or elegantly subdued; they are bold, they command attention. The majority of my reference comes from film stills and screen grabs, when the female subject is not posing or holding still for a voyeuristic gaze, but caught in a moment of active expression. By choosing a moment of mid-speech and gesture, I hope to convey the way these women are taking an active role in this platform for self-expression.” -Kate Perkins, 2015

Like and Subscribe

Kate Perkins 2015

What are these images?

The images in my paintings come from video stills. They are all recordings made for Youtube’s “beauty community”. The subjects are engaged in explaining, describing, or demonstrating the topic of their video. Under the website’s official category of Beauty/How-To, they bring the kind of friendly chatter and advice to the internet that, before video sharing, might be confined to beauty salons, high school locker rooms, and poster-papered bedrooms: How to make your lips look bigger. How to hide extensions in your hair. How to apply self-tanner, how to pencil in your eyebrows, how to wax, how to apply acrylic nails – and then beyond this advice – sharing.

Personal stories, mundane activities, consumer experiences. These videos are records of the hunting-and-gathering that young women engage in on the internet when assembling their outward identity.

What is Youtube?

Youtube turned 10 years old on April 23rd, 2015. It’s a free video sharing site where users have free “channels” onto which they upload content.

What is a girl?

Anyone who identifies as a girl.

My work features them because I want to focus on what is familiar to my life experience.

Why have these images been chosen?

These moments have been chosen in defiance of the typical voyeuristic, all-devouring, sexualizing gaze – these girls are active, engaged, demonstrating skills, sharing knowledge. No posed portraiture here – no melting gaze or shy turned heads, no soft-focus windblown hair. These aren’t the moments that sell a product or an image or a lifestyle.These are the kind of moments of motion and speech that “ruin photos”.

Why use paint to make these images?

Paint historically gives weight to a subject and elevates it to importance. I think what girls have done and are doing on the internet is important, and I want other people to see, however fleetingly, through my eyes. The process of taking a screen shot and transforming it into a painting:

1. gives it a visual depth and detail greater than 1080 pixels

2. Makes the viewer look at this chosen instant for at least a beat longer than it would be seen in the course of the video

3. Lets me amplify the colors and abstract the background, bringing the subject into bold technicolor focus.

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QUELL 

5|29|15

It was such a pleasure to finally be a part of a show at Golilock’s Gallery, and considerably more being that my two favorite women to work with were involved.  Here are some installation shots of the show including work by Charlette Hove and Emma Salamon, as well as a good luck tub i saw on the street that morning!!!!

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Installation shots of The Girl, 2015  from Quell at Goldilocks Gallery. 

QUELL

5|29|15

The group exhibition at Goldilock’s Gallery featured the installation, video, and photography of Charlette Hove, Holly Smith, and Emma Salamon. Each artist’s works translate perceptions of subdued emotions through muted colors, materials, and snapshots of ephemera voice as literal expressions of catharsis and of the mental healing process. goldilocksgallery.com/ 


www.charlettehove.com

 
www.emmasalamon.com

 
www.paperclips215.com/event/quell/

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Detail from the Bathtub , 2015

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The Bathtub, 2015

QUELL

5|29|15

The group exhibition at Goldilock’s Gallery featured the installation, video, and photography of Charlette Hove, Holly Smith, and Emma Salamon. Each artist’s works translate perceptions of subdued emotions through muted colors, materials, and snapshots of ephemera voice as literal expressions of catharsis and of the mental healing process. goldilocksgallery.com/ 
www.charlettehove.com 
www.hollysmith.co 
www.paperclips215.com/event/quell/

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The Girl, 2015

QUELL

5|29|15

The group exhibition at Goldilock’s Gallery featured the installation, video, and photography of Charlette Hove, Holly Smith, and Emma Salamon. Each artist’s works translate perceptions of subdued emotions through muted colors, materials, and snapshots of ephemera voice as literal expressions of catharsis and of the mental healing process.

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The Girl, 2015

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Color studies, shot by Sarah Naji, 2015