You can’t look directly at the sun,

but you can look at the lingering light on leaves,

the morning walker, 

the open window.

You can look at these paintings. 

- Elynor Smithwick

Elynor Smithwick is an Australian artist who draws on the connective similarities we all share. Her paintings resonate with an unplaceable sense of nostalgia, a feeling which seeps into viewers perceptions like slipping back into a still warm bed or picking up a story where you left off.

Growing up in Albury, NSW Elynor spent two years living abroad, experiencing European countries before moving to Melbourne in 2014 where she began studies in Visual Art. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Honours (2019) and Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting (2018), at the Victorian College of the Arts as well as Certificates III and IV in Visual Arts at CAE, Melbourne (2014-2015) before responding to a need to return “home” which had remained Albury. 

Elynor’s work is distinguished by a strong and consistent figurative representation of interiors and landscapes which centre around the transitory nature of existence. Through a chiaroscuro of elemental tones — ochre, aquatic and midnight blues, verdant greens and greys both illuminated and hidden by shadow play — scenes emerge filled with a palpable atmosphere leading to natural contemplation. Elynor’s paintings are a receptacle for her imagination, a depository of nostalgia which conjures an evocative sense of place. 

Figures are a constant thread reappearing across the breadth of Elynor’s work, unifying it and ensuring the scenes depicted remain grounded in the comforting realm of human perspective. Framed aspects through windows, where the exterior is the stage, embody a wistful sentiment while tableaus of idyllic outdoor scenes are intriguingly marred by the presence of details that stop just shy of picturesque. This subtle chicanery coaxes further inquiry into just what is happening within the depths of the story.

Elynor’s paintings are rich visual narratives, meeting somewhere between her subconscious and her lived experiences. Their origins lie in books, films and photographs which capture a moment in time that can then be extrapolated. Anchored by realism, each scene is a prologue where Elynor mediates between duality and sincerity in a way that feels like permission for her work to be digested effortlessly and without judgement.

While largely intuitive, “Another Word For Sun” is a continuation of Elynor’s 2020 exhibition “I Haven’t Seen The Moon Tonight.” A natural evolution informed by her continued collection of personal experiences, her growing skills as an artist and the storytelling quality established in her earlier exhibition. 

Each painting across this new iteration resurrects the presence of the lone figure, with a handful of paintings evolving it through the suggestion of another. This tertiary presence is presented through literal reflection, or the presence of an atmosphere that beckons the viewer, amplifying their own perspective onto the story depicted within and between each painting. One which Elynor leaves with the suggestion of an unending, much like an ellipsis on the end of a sentence, allowing space for the imagination to fill in its own continuation of the story that Elynor’s brush has left paused for readiness of animation. 

Written by Tiffany Jade.