Born in Marin County and raised on the beaches of California’s central coast, Laura Smith Blair was heavily inspired by her environment.
Starting in 1987, she began her arts education from University of California at San Diego where she earned her BFA in Visual Arts with a concentration in painting. Having worked with many professors including Faith Ringgold, Laura’s own work embraced the current conceptual movements of the time, like identity performance art. She pursued painting for two summers at the Rhode Island School of Design. Upon graduating, she painted alongside master muralist, Dong Sun Kim through 1994, where she was embracing a tighter technical style of painting through commercial and residential projects. With her passion for murals, she painted the next fifteen years in this large scale format throughout many city streets and residences. From 1999-2006, she and her husband opened up their own gallery for emerging artists, The Canvas. This connection to paintings shifted her direction to the fine art world.
Smith Blair has been in numerous galleries throughout California and her public collections include The Stanford Hospital, Children’s Hospital in Oakland, St. Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco, and Pacific Catch Fish House Restaurants throughout the Bay Area as well as many private residences in the United States and overseas.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Solo show at Marrow Gallery in April/May 2021
Laura Smith Blair’s latest body of work portrays California’s landscape through abstraction where past and future spaces meet.