J.L. Smay

J.L. Smay is an American painter and draftsman based in Northwest Arkansas. She began drawing from life in her early teens, and this early interest in describing the world through direct observation continues to be a prominent, recurring feature in her work.

It is often asked that one identify the story or meaning behind their work but here, the question seems easier to address by describing what it is not.

There is no intention to create a thing that is original, innovative, or conceptually conceived. Behind this work, you will find no innuendo, novelty, satire, or irony. What you see is what happens when the craftsman honestly attends to the natural world before her, be it physical or imagined, with an instrument in hand.

If any aim can be said to exist, it is only that the work be produced with unapologetic sincerity, shamelessly earnest, with the highest level of mastery possible, so that what results might be a thing both eternal and ephemeral; leaving open the possibility of some unbound beauty, set quite apart from the time in which we live now or ever have lived.

This work is everything and nothing.

Smay’s work has been displayed in local, regional, and national exhibitions and museums, and is held in private collections across the United States. 

For inquires click here