Lorna Smyth Embroidery Artist. Lorna has been working as a profesional artit since she qualified from the National College of Art & Design (NCAD), Dublin in 1994 receiving BA Hons in Textiles.
Since 2001 she has extensively exhibited her work through galleries, public shows and solo, joint and group exhibitions throughout Ireland and in Philadelphia, USA. In 2003 she moved to Enniskillen, Fermanagh and opened her first gallery The Yellow Wood Art Gallery on the outskirts of the town. In 2009 she moved her premises to the art and craft centre (The Buttermarket) in the Centre of Enniskillen, where her work can be viewed and purchased.
Lorna paints on handmade linen paper and canvas, using either oils and/or acrylic, all depending on the atmosphere she wishes to portray. The painted surface is then machine embroidered using cotton and silk threads. This is a technique she has developed herself over the last twenty years and it has become well recognised for its uniqueness. She feels it adds more of a sculptural, textural dimension and enhances the depth of the piece. As the light changes in the room throughout the day, the piece absorbs these subtle changes, and adds another dimension to the picture. The linear layering of colour is used also to capture the auras of all the civilizations that are here now and the ones that have gone before us, which now emanates up through and surrounds the earth’s atmosphere.Just like an archaeologist who can see the various passages of time through the different shadings of the earth.
Lorna Smyth Embroidery Artist
Lorna will sit, regardles of the weather and draw from nature rather than working from a photograph. This enables her to capture the atmosphere, her love of nature and a sense of feeling belonged, regardles of place name but rather how she becomes one with the environment, which encompasses her in that moment of time. She believes “The rain illuminates and adds a depth to the array of colours, so much so that I feel that it begs to be painted and its beauty to be appreciated”.
The colours she uses are more of an emotional palette rather than the actual reality. “It could be said that we project our unconscious emotional state of mind through our choice of colours and also what perspective our eyes chooses us to see from, all depending on our individual experiences, which we live through our lives”. Lorna captures the strength and gragility of the earth “the natural world still manages to manifest its demure beauty in order to survive and evolve through climatic change and the harsh human hand of a growing society, which depends on it for our own survival. This concept could also be said of the human psyche, another link, which inspires the poetic titles to her pieces, which are just as important to Lorna as the piece itself. They are poetic, philosophical and open to interpretation. She invites the viewer to interpret the piece for themselves to find their own personal story. Lorna believes that her paintings are mirrors to the unconscious mind but it is the viewer who decides what they choose to see: there is no right or wrong interpretation; there just is.
In Lorna’s figurative work she uses oils and acrylics to capture the oxidized effect of copper. This is to depict the decaying and weathering of the surface skin while till managing to capture the beauty and essence of the imperfections, which we all posses. Through the use of colour and texture, she captures the strength and fragility of a woman’s emotional journey while at the same time retaining their beauty and sensuality of being a woman.
To see picture album of recent work CLICK HERE
Artist, Lorna Smyth Embroidery Artist
Unit 5 the Buttermarket
Down st,
Enniskillen
Co Fermanagh
T: (0044) (0) 7792410498
E: lornasmyth@eircom.net
Lorna Smyth Embroidery Artist
