Viridian Artists is pleased to present a solo exhibition of prints of all sorts by the artist Virginia Evans Smit . The exhibit will continue from April 9 – April 27, 2013 with a reception, Saturday, April 13, 4 – 6 pm.

The “F” word usually brings to mind a host of either negative or at the very least controversial associations, but in the case of the art in this exhibit, Virginia Evans Smit is instead showing us the beautiful and the flamboyant of the floral and aquatic side of nature, then playing with it ingeniously. Smit is an artist of diverse skills & interests. Foremost in her artistic explorations are the varieties of printmaking and the artist expands the media to its fullest. In this group of works she is presenting a wide range of silk screen, monoprinting, Chine colle – a unique technique in printmaking in which the image is transferred to a surface that is recollaged in the printing process- solar etchings and digital prints that echo and evoke variations on all the above.

She loves color so the floral life in Barbados, where she spends her winters, accounts for much of the subject matter in this exhibition. In her last exhibition at Viridian in 2007, the focus of the work was the blooming beauty of the Caribbean plant life residing in her garden and in 2003, the images were remembrance of travels in Japan and across the U.S. In this current exhibit, she pushes her skills to encompass a wide range of experimental approaches to both her printmaking techniques and her subject matter.

The artist has the distinction of being the first African American female to receive a Masters of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania where she received The Thornton Oakly Creative Achievement Award. She has been associated with Viridian Artists since 1978. Over that time period she has had more than fifteen solo exhibitions at Farleigh Dickenson and Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, Mehu Gallery in Manhattan, the James E Lewis Museum at Morgan State University, the Barbados Museum and Historical Society and others. Her work is in many collections including General Foods, the Hewitt Collection of African American Art, the Library of Congress, The Fuba Collection in Johannesburg South Africa, Colgate Palmolive and many other private and public collections in the U.S. and abroad.