Artist Journal: Alyssa Smith
By Alyssa Smith
My last encounter with printmaking was about eight years ago when I fell in love with the monoprint process. At the time I was exploring landscapes specifically and had a very minimalist color palette, working mostly monochromatically. Somehow in the last five years, my colors of choice have changed quite a bit as well as the subject matter. I'm still entranced with the natural world but it started to move towards a more domestic take rather than in the wild.
Alyssa Smith, Immortelle (everlasting). Oil on gessoed paper, 6 x 8 inches
Through a personal journey of healing, I've also been exploring the healing properties of various plants - often considered weeds - as well as the energetic properties of color, wanting to visualize the invisible properties of these plants and how they may affect the world around them. I like to think of these living things in our environment that are grounded in the earth - how they shift and grow and yet have no language that we can hear. They don't communicate the way humans do though they can have their own sorts of communication. Just think of how a space feels before and after a living plant is placed in it. The shift is always palpable. There are many parallels I take from this when I think about life in general, my own presence as well as the presence of those around me. The direction I've been most interested to go in though for the moment is how this relates to the healing process and how the natural world has a role to play. For my time at Tusen Takk, I decided to concentrate on one flowering plant in particular - Helichrysum.
Alyssa Smith, Helichrysum (Immortelle) and Olive, 2023. Monoprint and pastel, 15 x 19 inches
Last summer I was at my parent's house in the south of France where my Dad has been growing a garden. There are large bushes of Helichrysum - also know nas "Everlasting" or "Immortelle". The yellow color of the flower feels dazzling in the sunlight - a very bright lemon yellow while the stalks seem almost light blue. I was taken by the way they seemed to vibrate and have been on a quest to find a way to repeat the experience through layering colors in the printing process. This flower has ancient roots as a healer for various ailments—with antibacterial properties it was used to heal wounds and its extracts as a replacement for cortisol in experiments done in the 1950s. It seemed like such a mundane, unassuming thing in my parent's backyard and yet its energetic and healing properties are so expansive.
In the studio, my month was spent testing color combinations and finding which ones start to capture the vision. I haven't been following a true monoprint process as I have been printing anywhere from 2-4 layers of different colors on top of each other. It is always a bit of an adventure as there is no set plate to work off of like there is in lino cut, intaglio and woodcut. This process always brings unexpected surprises which I love. So far, there has only been one piece from the month that gets close to where I want to go with this idea but I've been thankful for the time to work toward it. I'm hoping this piece will be a springboard from which to continue the venture.
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