slideshow image 2 slideshow image 3 slideshow image 4 slideshow image

Welcome Friends

I am a North Carolina conceptual portrait photographer. Look here for updates on my photography adventures. Visit www.HeatherEvansSmith.com for details on commissioned portrait shoots and fine art sales.

October 2, 2013: The Heart and The Heavy Now On Exhibit

Life is full of stories – some deeply personal and specific, others universally relatable.  My story is beautiful and complicated and bittersweet and hard.  Life is just that way.  So are photographs.

The birth of my daughter was life-changing, but not in the way I expected.  Though there has been no greater joy for me, the responsibility of another life has proven to be at times a heavy load.  Thinking about this in a literal sense, I imagined a heavy home on my shoulders, yet held tightly with love – a burden and a joy, a challenge and a reprieve.  This became the first image in the series The Heart and the Heavy.

From there the stories evolved, just as my life has.  The genesis of an image comes from moments of life, like a still from an old movie. Movement and pain and the simple joys of being alive are frozen in time – a study of fictional worlds based in reality.  Compelled to shoot these stories, I am haunted for days and months until it is released in an image.  Telling someone’s tale in a world not quite like our own.

It has been almost two years since I shot the image that changed my focus and redirected me as an artist. That image, The Heart and The Heavy, became a catalyst for a new study and the exhibit by the same name. I am thrilled to have the work on display in somewhat of an southeast tour this fall and winter.

First up, the Durham Art Guild is presenting the show from October 1 - 28 at the Room 100 Gallery in the Golden Belt in Durham, NC. There will be a public reception on Friday, October 18th from 6-9 p.m.

Next stop on the tour is Atlanta. The Jennifer Schwartz Gallery and I will be creating a one-night only special event on November 1st from 6-9 p.m. at DEADRINGER [prints + projects] located at Studio LR-12 at The Goat Farm Arts Center (1200 Foster Street, Atlanta, GA 30318). Then catch the show for the remainder of the year in the Jennifer Schwartz Gallery.

The MoNA Gallery in Charlotte will host the show from March 7 - April 26, 2014, with the opening reception on March the 7th. MoNA Gallery is located at 1900 N. Brevard St., Charlotte, NC 28206.

I couldn't be happier to be sharing this body of work. I hope to see you there!


0 comments: