Textile artist Debra Smith manipulates her materials with the instinct of an abstract painter. Her palette consists of carefully chosen fabrics that carry history and weight. Vintage men's suit linings contrast with vintage kimono linings, one austere, opaque and rigorously striped, the other translucent, soft and creamy. Both are resonant with use and the lives lived.
The resulting works are cut, layered, and sewn in an intuitive process that subtly mixes the patterns, weights, and opacities inherent in the fabrics to create idiosyncratic geometric shapes that shift playfully across the picture plane. As Smith's forms totter and skew, they balance against one another with a spontaneous freedom that belies the hours of meticulous work that went into their creation. In breaking from conventions of textile as craft or "women's work," Smith positions her practice firmly within the lineage of abstract painting while insisting on the irreplaceable presence of material, touch, and time.
Debra Smith says,” My connection to Japanese textiles taught me to recognize the labor, skill, and cultural history held in these materials, and I approach them with respect for the original makers. When I cut and reconfigure the cloth, I am following the grain, the tension, and the history inside the textile.”
Debra Smith studied at the Italian Academy of Fashion and Design, Lorenzo de Medici, in Florence, Italy, and received her BFA in Fibers from the Kansas City Art Institute, and an Associate in Applied Science from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2002. Her work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions over the past two decades and is held in museum and corporate collections. In 2012 she was named one of Women to Watch: Focus on Fiber and Textiles by the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. Her work has been published in New American Paintings and Textiles Around the World. Debra Smith lives and works in Kansas City, MO, and is represented by Kathryn Markel Fine Arts with two gallery locations in New York City.