Sasha Nikole Smith

Who is Sasha Nikole Smith?

Acrylic and mixed-media artist.

Resident of the great city of Missoula.

Perpetually Optimistic.

Slightly OCD (aren’t most artists?).

Amazing friend.

Socially active member of my creative community.

Sustainable design fanatic.

I count fence posts and electricity poles.  I am drawn to repetition yet I love chaos.  I like solving problems, yet I hate drama. I love structure and architecture of all most forms.  I am inspired and awed by some of the smallest things that I see.  ARTIST of many forms, functions, and mediums, I am.  Years of professional painting?  16.  Years I’ve loved it?  16.  Years I’ve resented it?  3.  Hey, at least I’m honest.  It’s very rare that I paint as a release.  It’s very often that I paint once everything else in my life is straightened out and as it should be.  My brain needs it that way.  If there are things to be done?  Forget about painting.  Does that make me the opposite of an artist?  Does that make me a cliché?  Or an anti-cliché?  Everybody is different and their ways of expressing themselves are different and that is beautiful.  My work is not “deep”, per se.  It is not political, angry, dark, or perplexing.  You might find some irony.  I love irony.  In my work, you’ll see vibrant colors, a keen eye for uncommon and unexpected angles, possibly some comic irony, and a heavy influence of architecture (note:  even a nautilus shell or fish spine is by all means structural!).  You will also often see heavy high-contrast – I believe there is something so beautiful and soothing with eliminating the “gray area”.  Basically, I truly believe that one of my life’s purposes is to make people happy.  I hope my art makes you happy.