Dustin D. Smith 'Unearthed' Original Available

Artist: Dustin D. Smith
Title: Unearthed
Medium: Acrylic on Canvast
Size: 16 x 20 x 1.5 Inches
Edition: UNIQUE
Price: $800

 

Dustin D. Smith is a contemporary abstract artist and a seasoned creative director and designer, currently based in Bend, Oregon. His artistic journey began in central Kansas, where he found making things to be a way to control the chaos in his childhood home. He developed his skills through formal education in art and design, which led him to a successful career in the advertising world, working in Chicago and San Francisco on global collaborations in print, film, and digital production for a wide variety of clients. The move to the Pacific Northwest in 2021 was a deliberate choice to be closer to nature, and the surrounding environment of forests, rivers, and mountains heavily influences his current mindset and artwork.

Smith's artwork is a deep exploration of "permanence and impermanence" through methods of pigment application and erasure, layering and erosion. He views existence as an infinite expanse in time and space, with each life a fleeting memory, a single layer in the postulate of existence. He experiments with a myriad of styles and mediums, ranging from realism in graphite to large abstract canvases and three dimensional works. His primary mediums include acrylic, graphite, and watercolor, with his large abstracts often involving a meticulous process of design in Adobe Illustrator before being transferred to the canvas or panel. In his paintings, he balances precision with the evidence of his process, including tool marks, scrapes, and fingerprints, to reflect the transient nature of existence.

He has several distinct collections, including the "Schema" collection, which focuses on intention versus destruction, and the "Stones" series of watercolor and graphite pieces, which he describes as grounding him and reminding him of balance. An avid outdoorsman and adventurer, Smith's connection to nature and the exploration of the world around him, as well as events of the past, present, and future, all come together in his paintings to evoke exploration in the mind of the viewer.