Dr. Paige Smith-Wyatt is an award winning contemporary realist painter. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally and is in numerous public and private collections. She began painting at an early age and pursued formal art education (BA, MPS, PhD) to refine her practice and process from technical skills toward a dialogue with the natural world that is rooted in contemplation, tranquility, humility, and compassion.
Paige was born in Alabama and spent her childhood roaming fields, woods, and streams on her family’s farm, which she credits as being her main inspiration to become an artist. She has lived and created in New Mexico, Alabama, Virginia, Nevada, Texas, New York, Hawaii, North Dakota, the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana, and now lives and paints in Corrales, New Mexico.
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Nature has been my greatest teacher and has solidified my understanding of life and painting. My art practice and process is rooted in Taoist philosophical contemplative identification with nature. My paintings embody the pursuit of wu wei, effortless action. This involves becoming a vessel for the creative force by relying on intuition, feeling, and empathy, and approaching with sensitivity my being, surroundings, subject, medium, and the artwork’s surface, color, and process to achieve a visceral synthesis. Painting in this way is a form of research-based art practice that privileges the potential art making has for knowledge formation where subjective experience, cognition, and aesthetics are intertwined in the process and allows for the emergence of that which is not yet known or fully comprehended. All of this is channeled into the work with an unhurried grace where the paintings themselves evoke the natural world and are reminders of the interconnectedness of all things. My paintings invite us to connect with the essence of nature and the human spirit, and encourage us to contemplate the world and the nature of being with a kind, and open heart.
My paintings, whether plein air or produced in the studio move from representation toward abstraction and are born from my dialogue with the natural world. Amidst the melding of the inner and outer, order emerges through the foundation of minimalism. Shapes become pared down, colors are chosen with purposeful restraint. The focus shifts not to outward spectacle, but to quietude within. Nature is rendered with simple elegance, reminding us that beauty lies not in excess, but in the essential. My paintings are a reminder that true beauty lies in the simple, the humble, and the compassionate.
I am often asked about the different ways I work and my seemingly different styles. I believe that an artist is affected by the materials they work with, as well as the subject matter/genre they choose. Certainly for me, it is not a matter of controlling and mastering a medium, but rather a collaboration between myself and the medium and subject/genre. Working outdoors and working in the studio are two completely different experiences.
With plein air and plein air inspired landscapes, the energy of nature is felt and expressed through the painting process. So many things are going on at once - it is experienced, not analyzed. I feel that painting expressively with soft pastel or the thick viscous medium of oil paint, particularly with a palette knife, best suit and relate this. The impasto oil surface becomes a textured landscape in itself, like sculpted earth, rising from the canvas, rough and inviting like weathered rocks etched with tales of time and resilience and invoking compassion. The painterly execution, which relies more on impression, intuition, and feeling, rather than on strict realistic representation, speaks to humility, a rejection of the artificial and a celebration of the raw and imperfect.
Still life is contemplative, invites intimacy, and allows for exploration of fine detail. Therefore, I find materials and techniques that inherently require fine manipulation, such as egg tempera, wax tempera, and classical oil painting techniques, to best suit still life painting. These painting techniques require a time-intensive process involving the application of many, many layers. It takes weeks and sometimes months to complete a painting. With time, paintings created with either egg or wax tempera cure to a durable mat finish that can be polished with a soft cloth. Since paintings often leave my studio before they have had time to fully cure, which often takes about a year, I coat most of my paintings with a thin beeswax-based varnish to offer more instant protection. My paintings created using traditional oil techniques require drying time before being varnished.
Curriculum Vitae
Education
2020 Ph.D. Florida State University - Art Education - Art Practice Research focus: contemplative art-making, grounded in identification with Nature, for self-care, wellbeing, resilience, and the development of compassion. Dissertation: Landscape Orientation
1997 MPS Pratt Institute - Art Therapy and Creativity Development
1993 BA Huntingdon College - Fine Art, Painting
Solo Exhibitions
2020 Solo Exhibition - Florida State University Counseling Center, Tallahassee, Florida, opening and workshop Thursday, April 9th ***Canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic***
2019 Solo exhibition - Johnson Center for the Arts, Troy, Alabama, February 27 through April 13
2018 Solo Exhibition - Wallace Community College, Dothan, Alabama, September 13 - November 8, 2018
2008 Solo Exhibition - James Memorial Art Center, Williston, North Dakota
Selected Exhibits and Shows
2024 Loveland Museum, Colorado - Expanding Horizons exhibition
2024 Legends of the West Fine Art, Santa Fe - Plein Air Painters of New Mexico National Exhibition
2024 The Architecture of Beauty - Works by Prominent New Mexico Artists - New Mexico Cancer Center Gallery
2024 Weems Gallery, Albuquerque New Mexico - Paint New Mexico exhibition
2024 Albuquerque Museum, New Mexico - ArtsThrive
2024 Masterworks of New Mexico, Hispanic Art Gallery at Expo New Mexico - Award of Excellence
2023 Salmagundi Club, NYC - Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club’s 126th Anniversary Exhibition from November 27 - December 8, 2023
2023 American Women Artists Member Exhibition, online - Sept. 2023 - Sept. 2024
2023 FUSION Gallery, Albuquerque, New Mexico - New Realism group exhibition curated by Martin Terry - Oct. 6-Dec. 1, 2023
2023 Weems Gallery, Albuquerque, New Mexico - Pastel Society of New Mexico member exhibition
2023 Old Church Fine Art Show, Corrales, New Mexico
2022 Millicent Rogers Museum - Pastel Society of New Mexico National exhibition
2022 Art Students League Of New York group exhibition
2022 FLORA New Mexico Art League group exhibition
2022 Glimmerglass Gallery, Corrales, New Mexico, Featured artist - May & June
2021 Sorrel Sky Gallery, Santa Fe, Plein Air Painters of New Mexico’s 13th National Juried Exhibition
2021 Taos Plein Air Exhibitions at Wilder Nightingale Gallery & the E.L. Blumenschein Museum, Taos, NM
2021 Painting featured in Saatchi Art Summer Poster curated by Megan Wright
2021 Painting featured in Saatchi Art curated collection by Rebecca Wilson
2020 Painting featured in Saatchi Art curated collection by Rebecca Wilson
2019 Art Revolutions, Florida State University, William Johnston Building Gallery
2018 NAEA Member Exhibition, NAEA Studio & Gallery, Alexandria, Virginia
2018 National Art Education Association annual conference digital exhibition
2017 Art at City Hall Gallery, Montgomery, AL
2017 The Art of Being Southern exhibition, Johnson Art Center, Troy, Alabama
2017 Florida Art Education Association annual conference digital exhibition, reception held at St. Petersburg Museum of Art
2017 bG Gallery, Santa Monica, California, Gestalt 4
2017 Artful Journeys: A New Chapter in Art Education, Florida State University, William Johnston Building Gallery
2017 bG Gallery, Santa Monica, California, Water and Sky exhibition
2017 Phyllis Straus Gallery, Florida State University, "Reflection: A Look Back at Black History from Past to Present"
2016 Heritage Exhibition, International Arts Center, Troy University, Troy, Alabama
2016 ArtPrize, Grand Rapids, Michigan
2016 Montgomery Museum of Fine Art's 2016 Italy Exhibition, Palazzo Panichi, Pietransanta, Italy
2016 Art at City Hall Gallery Summer Exhibition, Montgomery, Alabama
2014 Group Exhibit, The Lake Mansion, Reno
2014 Pastel Society of the West Coast
2013 Featured on the Interior Design Blog Houzz.com
2013 Apalachicola Art Walk
2013 LeMoyne Chain of Parks Art Festival
2010 Dowling Museum/Ann Rudd Art Center
2008 Horizontal Grandeur, Stevens County Historical Society and Museum
2007 Albert Schweitzer Institute, Images of Peace Art Exhibition
2007 Women’s International Peace Conference Art Auction
2007 Artrageous Invitational
2006 - 2007 Represented by The Lagerquist Gallery Atlanta
2003 - 2008 Represented by Kennedy International Fine Art
2003 - 2008 Represented by Corporate Art Source Gallery
prior to 2007 - selected exhibitions: Alabama State Capital, Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dowling Museum of Art, Stephen F. Austin Gallery, Pratt Institute, Huntingdon College, Gallery One - Montgomery, Alabama, Troy State University, and Enterprise State Junior College
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Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children, Waco, Texas
Dover Counseling, Enterprise, Alabama
Lyster Army Hospital/Clinic, Ft. Rucker, Alabama
Dowling Museum/Ann Rudd Art Center, Ozark, Alabama
Enterprise State Community College, Enterprise, Alabama
Private Collections throughout the United States, England, Belgium, Norway, and China
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2024 Award of Excellence - Masterworks of New Mexico
2021 Honorable Mention - Dry Media - Sorrel Sky Gallery, Santa Fe, Plein Air Painters of New Mexico’s 13th National Juried Exhibition
2021 Painting selected among top 10 Aspen paintings in PAPNM Taos Paint Out and exhibited at the E.L. Blumenschein Museum, Taos, NM
2004 People’s Choice Award - Local Color Art Exhibit, Wiregrass Museum of Art
2004 Purchase Award - Dowling Museum/Ann Rudd Art Center
2003 Award of Merit - Dowling Museum/Ann Rudd Art Center
1999 Honorable Mention - 38th Annual National Exhibition, Beaumont Art League
1996 Bolton Art Therapy Scholarship
1993 Huntingdon College Art Scholarship
1991 Dothan Advertising Federation Art Scholarship
1990 Cleve Donaldson Art Scholarship
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American Women Artists
Rio Grande Art Association
Plein Air Painters of New Mexico
Pastel Society of New Mexico
Corrales Society of Artists
Plein Air Florida - Invitational Member
Society for Artistic Research
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Paige now paints full time, but in the past, she has shared her love and knowledge of art and art therapy as an Adjunct Professor of Visual Arts at Troy University, Wallace Community College, Western Nevada College, as a workshop Instructor, and in many healthcare settings including inpatient and outpatient pediatrics, skilled care nursing facilities, classrooms for children diagnosed with autism spectrum and behavioral disorders, with victims of abuse and individuals and groups dealing with trauma and grief, and with higher education students. Paige has retired her credentials as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC - Texas), Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC - New Mexico), Board Certified Art Therapist (ATR-BC), and a National Certified Counselor (NCC).
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Doctoral Dissertation: Landscape Orientation
International Journal of Education Through Art, Spring 2019: Understanding Art As Experience Through Painting
SIX Magazine, Spring 2018 Florida State University: Contemplative Art Making As New Materialist Method