Ken Smith

My work gives me the opportunity to get closer to those things that inspire me. I have always had a desire to see what is beneath, behind, or within a subject, for that is where I believe the spirit resides. This method of work has also given me a gentle mistrust of the surface, especially when it is lauded as most important.

Although Photography seems to be a medium of the external surface, I want to find what there is inside that is significant. So I slow down, look closely, and wait for the meaning to come forth from the interior. When I make an image, I want to belong to or become the subject. This empathy is what I am putting into the work - an admiration, respect and love for what is within the subject I am photographing. If I do my work well and am in harmony with it, I hope the inner spirit will exude onto the finished work, and express itself to the viewer that is available to feel it.

My work is influenced by asian aesthetics and philosophy. Tho I feel there are many complexities inside my imagery, I struggle with the contradiction that comes in paring my work down to the simplest form, as tho a seventeen syllable haiku.

My creative life began as a freelance writer, and commercial & editorial photographer. Since 1991, I have been concentrating on limited-

editioned fine-art, and my most extensive body of work is in the still life genre. I also work with the landscape, and the female nude. I print my work in black & white and color, using both traditional photographic processes & archival pigment ink on fine cotton printmaking papers, and also in mixed-media.

My work has been exhibited internationally…is in museum, corporate, and private collections in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Japan. I live and work from my log home in the forested foothills of the North Cascade Mountains in northcentral Washington State – surrounded by nature which stimulates my spirit and influences my artwork.