FRANCES SMOKOWSKI
b. 1962 Ossining, NY, USA
WORKS | BIOGRAPHY | EXHIBITIONS | ARTIST STATEMENT
SELECTED WORKS
BIOGRAPHY
Frances Smokowsik's art has always been influenced by her meditative and mediumistic experiences. For a long time she worked successfully in the field of art therapy, keeping the transpersonal dimensions of her own artistic practice largely private. Her work with neurodiverse populations began in the late 80's at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and continues today. In 2008, she took a leave of absence from the field to pursue additional training in historical painting and drawing techniques in New York City.
Over the course of four decades, Smokowski has produced series of works in a variety of media. These range from analogue collage to digital photography, mixed media works in 2D and 3D, drawing and painting. Smokowski has explored spirituality in general and indigenous healing traditions in particular. Through yoga and reiki, qigong and shamanism, she learned ways of accessing energy, insight and transcendent states that have enriched her studio practice in surprising ways. By approaching the creative process without preconceptions and allowing the forms to develop automatically, biomorphic images kept emerging. Through meditation and the self-imposed limitations of the interface with mass culture, she found access to a multi-dimensional art world within.
The work at CoMA, 'Spectral Illuminare', is part of a series of drawings entitled 'Apperceptions' that Frances Smokowski made during her daily train rides in New York City in 2014 and 2015. On these occasions, she placed herself in a meditative state of supplication and connected with the benevolent energies of Kwan Yin and the "Prayer Field of Heart Essence" to create these striking automatic drawings.
SELECTED EXHBITIONS
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2004 PHOTO-Synthesis Collage, Takoma Park Metaphysical Chapel, Silver Spring, MD
1985 Construct, the Urban Art Project at Theater Place, Buffalo, NY
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Edgewalkers: Sacred and Profane. Cavin-Morris Gallery, New York, NY
2022 Creative Spirits, The College of Psychic Studies, London, England
2018 Members Show, Ossining Arts Counsel, Ossining Public Library, Ossining, NY
2012 Deck the Walls, Wilkinson Hall Gallery, NY Academy of Art, New York, NY
2011 Deck the Walls, Wilkinson Hall Gallery, NY Academy of Art, New York, NY
Alumni Prints, Ground Floor Exhibition Space, NY Academy of Art, New York, NY Summer of Prints and Small Sculpture, Medialia Gallery, New York, NY
First Impressions & Formative Experience, Medialia Gallery, New York, NY
2010 Deck the Walls, Wilkinson Hall Gallery, NY Academy of Art, New York, NY
Still Life, Medialia Gallery, New York, NY
Conceptually Sound, Medialia Gallery, New York, NY
Diploma Project Exhibition, Wilkinson Hall Gallery, NY Academy of Art, New York, NY Just Look at Yourself, 5th Floor Gallery, NY Academy of Art, New York, NY
Met Paint,4th Floor Exhibition Space, NY Academy of Art, New York, NY Tribeca Ball, NY Academy of Art, New York, NY
Art Student Confidential, 5th Floor Gallery, NY Academy of Art, New York, NY
ARTIST STATEMENT
“BIOMORPHING”: An Artist’s Statement by Frances A. Smokowski
January 2012 / Revised: April 2023
In many circles, from contemporary “New Thought” groups to esoteric traditions in existence for centuries, there is discussion of circumstantial particularity coming into being as a function of a person’s thoughts and beliefs. Soul level healing, therefore, may come from observing here-and-now occurrences and evaluating them in light of what conscious and/or unconscious thought patterns would result in what has happened. Similarly, exploring what is desired but has yet to appear offers another opportunity to enter creative process to remove obstacles or barriers. Consciousness in these paradigms is seen as an active dimension that pushes out into 3D palpability what has been charged with enough energy to become experiential “reality”. Body, Mind and Spirit are the instruments to be coordinated for the flow of energy, emotion and thought to align in creative efficacy. These, primordial, formative elements are seen as an enveloping, non-physical domain of potentialities gathering strength for manifestation; or dissipating as opposing currents intervene. Thus, life can be seen simply as a process of attunement and intentionality, of mindfulness and release, of mastery and surrender.
Shamans and energy healers across the globe self-induce altered states of consciousness in order to effect positive changes in the experiential reality of those seeking their assistance. Where they go in psychic space and how they arrive there bears different names in different regions or traditions. Whether entering ancestral Dreamtime, journeying into transpersonal wisdom, embarking on Astral travels, communicating on the ethers, visiting “the Other side” or consulting the Heavens, healers who venture beyond immediate concerns and appearances are accessing an infinitely vast and rich imaginal realm, one that has been known across cultures and times to hold tremendous power.
Smokowski’s drawn and painted “BIOMORPHING” explores and engages the non-physical, creative realms; each image functioning as an abstracted representation of behavior patterns and belief systems in the process of dynamic change and transformation. These images are metaphorical depictions of the flow of thoughts and feelings towards and through Spiritual process. They are in a way fleeting psychic landscapes, glimpses of proto-realities in-visioned through sound-induced meditative states. Yet, they are simultaneously invocations, purposeful statements, crafted to shift the realm of pure potentialities towards best case scenario outcomes for every focused-upon intention.
