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Pamela Smilow
Pamela Smilow
grew up surrounded by art. Her father was a modern furniture designer, sculptor and painter. She was raised in a unique cooperative community founded by Frank Lloyd Wright, where all the modern homes were integrated into their natural surroundings. New York City, with its myriad museums and cultural opportunities, was her backyard. From a very early age, she knew that she wanted to be an artist.
Although primarily self-taught in art, Pam did attend the University of Michigan (B.A., 1978) and spent one year studying ceramics at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Aix-en-Provence, France. She had her first one-woman show in Ann Arbor, Michigan when she was twenty-one and has continued to paint and exhibit ever since. She spent a number of years living in Europe, specifically France and Spain. She now resides in New York City with her Danish artist husband, Gert Mathiesen, and their twelve-year-old daughter, Morgan.
Smilow's paintings are full of life, color and child-like primitivism. No surprise, since she draws on childhood experiences and memories for her vocabulary of symbols. These icons have remained consistent over the years: ladders, windows, vessels, flowers, houses, trees, clothing (based on paper doll cutouts). Her work grows out of abstract expressionism but has a variety of other influences. Nature continues to be her major inspiration.
Her interest in language brought her to Europe: she has lived in Barcelona, Spain and in southern France. This period added a new Mediterranean perspective to her work. Soon after returning to the United States, Pamela Smilow met her husband, Danish artist Gert Mathiesen. Aside from her own work, they also collaborate in a variety of different media, most recently on a series of mixed media, large-scale rice paper pieces. In the past, they have worked together in clay, plaster, printmaking, and painting.
Pamela Smilow’s work is part of many corporate and private collections throughout the United States and abroad.
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