A Smith Killian Fine Art in Charleston, SC, will present the exhibit, Intersections: Figurative Works by Shannon Smith, on view from Apr. 1 - 30, 2011. A reception will be held on Apr. 1, from 5:30-8:30pm.

This is the first time in the artist’s career that she has presented an entire collection of oil paintings exploring the figure. Smith is a Charleston native and comes from a family of artists, her mother Betty Anglin Smith, sister Jennifer Smith Rogers and brother Tripp Smith are all highly respected artists exploring different media and subject matter.

Smith’s paintings are soulful renditions of her interactions and experiences in everyday life. Her subjects include Lowcountry landscapes, travel paintings, figural paintings, still lifes and interiors. The common thread between all of her work is the light that illuminates her paintings. She captures the warm glow of the afternoon sun and recreates the drama of that moment in time.

For Intersections Smith has explored her fascination with the figure, expressing the gestures, personality and energy of her subjects in paint to tell their story.

The artist explains that her inspiration for Intersections “came from the concept of how my life has ‘intersected’ in some manner with the figures painted in this body of work.” She captures the life of her subject through her eyes and interaction with them and describes it as a ‘visual journal’ of her chosen figures. While some paintings express a more intimate moment in the artist’s experience, such as a lunch with her mother on a painting trip in Maine, others reflect a more fleeting interaction, as the artist encounters a girl with an umbrella on a walk in Argentina. Each ‘intersection’ is a reflection of the artist’s life, her travels, encounters and experiences with others.