Blu Smith: No Thru Traffic

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Blu Smith, "No Thru Traffic," 2018

The West End Gallery is pleased to present “No Thru Traffic” a solo exhibition of new work by internationally recognized Vancouver Island artist Blu Smith, opening Sunday May 6.  Blu Smith will be in attendance at his reception on Sunday between 1-3pm.

Trained as a realist and a sign painter, Smith says that he became dissatisfied with pure realism and “once abstraction came around… the skies opened”. His paintings are thick with texture and alive with colour and the incredible luminosity that is his hallmark. He attributes the shift in his paintings from pure abstraction to landscape-based abstracts to his lushly forested surroundings in North Saanich, BC. Bursts of colour lead the viewer into his paintings to a point that seems to emanate light, the last thing to be added to Smith’s paintings through a combination of colours and applications designed to pull out the illuminated feeling and create an instantaneous response in the viewer. 

“Light is very important; it creates the power in my work. When that luminosity comes through, it just makes it pop.”