Atsuko Smith

For the past ten years, my work has explored traditional female stereotypes, particularly the role that women play as the primary care giver to children and manager of the household. My methods have been collecting, sorting, recycling, stitching and collage.

I bring my Japanese heritage and sensibility to the processes and through the manipulation of the original design and texture, I create a facetious chaos for many of the pieces. The humor and chaos that result, is a telling comment not only on mass consumption but on motherhood itself.

As my only daughter quickly matures beyond her years, I am finding more time for myself and my art practice. Household chores and parental obligations can be put aside for a time while I ponder who I am now, where I belong, why I make art and what sort of images are relevant. For this exhibition, I have returned to oil painting as my primary medium and am using my daughter as my subject and collaborator. She represents the joy of capturing life as it is in this moment.

Atsuko Inagawa Smith is a native of Japan. She took design corsework at the College of Musashino Art University, Tokyo before embarking on international studies in France, Italy and the U.S. She received her B.F.A and M.F.A. in Painting from the Savannah College of Art & Design where she was awarded the Presidential Fellowship. Atsuko has been an art instructor for the City of Savannah, the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice, the Savannah-Chatham Public School system, and the Telfair Museum’s Jepson Center for the Arts. Her work has been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions across the Unites States. In 2007, she was invited by the Consulate General of Japan to display her work at the Japan Fest in Atlanta, Georgia. Smith is an active member of the arts community in Savannah, GA where she lives with her husband, Marc, and their daughter Mina.