ARTIST’S STATEMENT - Patricia Z. Smith

I am here on this earth with you in this mystery of not knowing. This is my gift to you—my gesture.

Things that create of each other

more than the sum of their parts

Objects have presence, in form and meaning. Their physical qualities—shape, color, smell, texture, assigned use, and condition—evoke intangible qualities of mood, memory, longing, intent, joy, injury, and awe in the viewer. Objects hold the stuff of stories.

Set in relationship to each other, objects are complements that entwine the potential of their separate stories into larger stories—more complex, nuanced, intimate, intriguing. These intangible qualities bounce off each other, tease each other, threaten each other, review a glory in each other—and in the mysterious processes of imagination and metaphor, we viewers can be pulled through portals to where spoken and written language have no say. Only intangibles can reveal intangibles.

Wordless metaphors and allusions can open a vault of original knowledge inside us, a similarity, a remembering that alludes to the largest story. What is beyond objects?

As a photographer, I have always received, even been beset by, visions that take me further and further into exploring the “I AM” beyond time and space. My camera is a scalpel, retriever, and lover.

I work with objects. Do they give me life, or do I give them life?