Chefas Initiatives is thrilled to current the return of Portland painter Emily Smart along with her newest assortment of labor Hair of the Banshee. Impressed by myth-making and the relationships ladies construct with themselves and one another, Smart makes use of the act of portray as a option to think about, discover, and interrogate the existence of a sacred female house. Bursting with an electrical palette of lush, maybe imagined botanicals, our bodies and landscapes, her work explode with dizzying layers of element aimed to entry invisible realms by way of acquainted varieties. In every physique of labor, Smart weaves a surreal, overarching narrative because the viewer follows her protagonists on their journey of self by way of otherworldly terrain.
In Hair of the Banshee, Smart invitations the viewer on a surreal journey alongside three sisters as they enterprise into uncharted territory of their quest for solutions to the long-standing mysteries which have haunted their household for generations.
Rising up amidst the charming tales spun by their grandmother, the sisters had been immersed within the lore of banshees—a distant echo of their heritage. Nonetheless, with their grandmother’s passing, a lingering query persists: was she merely the guardian of those Irish legends, or might she have been the very banshee she so vividly described?
Pushed by the unmistakable scent of canned sloppy joe (a dish their grandmother might by no means grasp) and the distant melody of a solitary harmonica, the ladies slowly method the enigmatic border that separates delusion from actuality, the place the spirit of their grandmother now resides.
