Biography | Resume
Elizabeth Apgar-Smith, best known for her impressionistic landscapes of the Schoharie Valley region, cityscapes, still lifes, and depictions of people engaged in everyday living, is currently focusing on an evolving, touring exhibition, Faithful Labors, a tribute to Schoharie County’s farm families. The exhibit opened in spring of 2005 at Wellington’s Herb & Spice Farm Gallery in Schoharie, then moved on to The Bennington Center for the Arts in Vermont.
The Skidmore College graduate has earned numerous regional and national honors over the years for her pastels, watercolors and oils. She has been featured in articles in two major art magazines, and has had multiple examples of her work included in six books on painting technique.
Elizabeth teaches at the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops in Greenville, NY, the SUNY Cobleskill mini-course program, and offers weekly classes in the spring and fall from her studio in Schoharie. She is a juried member of the Pastel Society of America, the Northeast Watercolor Society and the Capital Region Oakroom Artists.
Biography
Artist statement
I consider myself to be a contemporary Romantic painter, an impressionist interested in creating images that celebrate the beauty I find in the world around me.
For the past 27 years, I have called the Schoharie Valley of Upstate New York home. Its pastoral character and salt-of-the-earth people have been a perpetual source of inspiration to me in my landscape and narrative works. Although I have painted all manner of subjects over the years, living in the midst of the natural bounty of the Catskill Mountains offers me daily inspiration unavailable to many artists.
My most recent focus has been on Schoharie County’s family farms, and on the noble farmers who struggle to maintain a disappearing way of life. In my paintings, I have strived to combine what I see as a romantic landscape with the depiction of the honest, hard-working farmers who toil each day to produce our food. I have named the touring exhibition, three years in the making, Faithful Labors.
My hope was that I might pay tribute to the beauty in the honest struggle of farm work, thereby placing a spotlight on a profession too often forgotten. The emotional reactions I’ve received from farmers who have viewed the exhibitions have convinced me that my endeavor has been worth all the time and effort I put into creating the body of work and encourage me to further my exploration of the subject.
Resume
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