THE STUDIO

  • Ian Rayer-Smith, contemporary expressionist artist, in his studio

     I’ve never looked for a label to describe who I am or what I make. I follow instinct, letting emotion, memory, and chance shape the work until something unexpected takes form. 

     

     My paintings are traces of that process; bold, intuitive, and always reaching for the unknown.

     

    IAN RAYER-SMITH 

    • I don’t have any fixed process or technique. I’m always working in many different ways. It enables me to combine different techniques. I’ll leave myself open to discovering more.

      This means that with the paintings I have in my studio sometimes something happens and then I realise that it can work on another painting that I have on the go. And so, in a way, a lot of my inspiration comes from my previous work. 

       

    • Painters have always borrowed from the past but should produce art for the era in which they live. For me, inspiration comes from so many different places and experiences. Over the years I’ve been inspired by the Abstract Expressionist movement, and I love expressive painting.  Also, and highly importantly, personal experience counts for a lot - by working in an unguarded expressive way I find that the unexpected can emerge.

       

  • The Working Process

  • 'If there's no unity in your work, then you've deliberately made yourself into that kind of person. You don't want that unity in your work. You've made some kind of satisfactory arrangement with your culture'.

    Milton Resnick