About My Work

My focus of attention lies in the connection between observation and awareness of inner developments. I am particularly interested in making the bridge between these two conditions visible. My motivation is my own inner development and the passionate joy I experience when making this inner process concretely visible. I hope that my work speaks to people and in turn encourages their own growth.

These fundamental ideas motivated me to create the following series of pictures:

1. Visualizations of the thoughts of Plotinus, "The Descent of the Soul into Manifestation": 15 tableaus with pigments.

2. "The Conference of the Birds": A Sufi tale by Farid al-Din Attar, a 12th-century Persian thinker. The birds symbolize different types of people who are led on an inner quest through seven valleys, the sequence and meaning of which are based on Sufi teachings. Avian images on reflective substrate.

3. "The Tulip Women": For me, the tulip symbolizes the awakened consciousness. The tulip women appear in many of my pictures as bearers of memory, as planters and as conservers. Panel pictures on reflective substrates.

4. "Encounters in Movement": These small panel pictures on reflective substrates always show the anima (the soul) in movement or juxtaposed with Hathor (the cow as source of female power), Horus (the falcon as mentor), the ibis (which indicates the direction) or the self as its own double.

5. "Cosmic Mirrored Worlds": The manifestations of nature are juxtaposed with human understanding. Anatomical enlargements, the formal idiom of which reflects the images of the universe, are placed in a context with an understanding of forms inspired by ancient Chinese murals. 21 collages with three different motifs: the Buddha, the guide, and the human figure facing the symbolized Absolute.

Brigitte Smith