Welcome
ANGELA GAFFNEY-SMITH
Mixed Media Artist
b. 1957 Birmingham, England
ART IS LIFE
words about my work
words about my work
My work coincides with the seasons here in upstate New York. It reflects the duality of my vision. The light transparency of watercolor is balanced with the strength, weight and grounding of materials such as bluestone and wood.
words about my work
words about my work
words about my work
Memories, images and words, like the irregular rocks within these cairns, are stored inside me. I would not be who I am without the pieces of my jagged history.
About
Angela Gaffney-Smith is an artist of the Catskills. She was born in England in 1957 became a citizen of the U.S. in 1972, received her B.A. in Art History and Visual Arts from SUNY New Paltz. Gaffney-Smith uses two distinct mediums to convey her connection to the
Catskill Mountains and Hudson River.
Inspired by her Irish heritage and the Native American stone piles in the Catskills, Angela constructs bluestone cairns ranging from 2 inches to 7 feet tall using bluestone from the quarry on which she lives. These cairns are vessels for thoughts and images and often contain meaningful relics of people and places. They begin with an infinite circle at the base and wind upward to a point of air and light.
Watercolor best captures the light of forest, streams, rocks or storms. With over thirty years of water media experience, she also combines bits and pieces of paintings and prints in water-based collage.
Her watercolors and collage are in private collections in the U. S. and Ireland. Angela's cairns are in numerous private collections and the 5’ tall bluestone installation, "Ringneck", marks the entrance to the sculpture trail at the Woodstock School of Art, Woodstock, NY.