Colin Hugh Smith, Saint John NB

Colin Hugh Smith lived in the United States, the Bahamas and Jamaica but for over 50 years New Brunswick is home. On his journey he's been a Registered Interior Designer, a restaurateur, a journalist, a published fiction writer and an art promoter, but these days his creative energies are mostly focused on painting Impressionistic decorative art.

Studying visual art and art history at UNB in Fredericton, and the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design, he’s also gained much from workshops with prominent New Brunswick artists such as Molly Lamb Bobak, Gisela Lindlau, Jennifer Pazienza, Brigid Toole Grant and Richard Flynn, but he is largely a self-trained artist.

In addition to a long-standing association, including solo shows, at Gallery 78 in Fredericton, his work appeared in solo shows at the former Seacoast Gallery and Sunbury Shores both in St. Andrews, NB and the old ABEC in Saint John (the Saint John Arts Centre). His work was also featured at Saint John's Imperial Theatre, the New Brunswick Museum the New Brunswick Festival of the Arts, the University of New Brunswick's Student Voices show, and ARTgallery ‘Rat in Queenstown. He has appeared in both solo and group exhibitions at Cobalt Gallery, the Klausen Gallery, the Fundy Art Gallery, all of Saint John, and has shipped several paintings West to British Columbia and East to Scotland and England. He’s recently appeared in successful art festivals such as the annual Rothesay Netherwood School Show and the Summerville Festival.

Artist's statement:

My paintings are about the simple pleasures of looking which can change mood or attitude and touch the heart. Celebrating the arrival of spring, or flowers on a summer’s day, in exuberant or tender harmony, are praised by owners and loved, so I’m told, as they translate memory into visual experience.