Dancing the Dark Away

About the Artist

Lura Schwarz Smith has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art, emphasis in painting and drawing, from San Francisco State University. She produced textile art and mixed media beginning in 1975, showing in California galleries throughout the 70s and 80s. In the 90s she showed art quilts and received awards at national and international quilt shows, and taught workshops internationally. One of her art quilts was named one of the “100 Best American Quilts of the 20th Century.”

Over the past years, Lura has turned her focus to painting with oils and pastels, exploring both realistic and more abstract and fractured approaches. Exploring the imagination and inner life through figurative art is a primary interest.

She has had several solo shows of her paintings at Vernissage in Fresno, as well as work shown at Gateway Art Center, Oakhurst, the Sorensen Studio Gallery, Fresno, the Tree Top Gallery, Mariposa, and Circle Gallery, Madera. Recently, she received Best in Show for her painting in The Nudes Show at the Sorensen, and has a painting juried into Yosemite Renaissance 36, currently at the Yosemite Gateway Art Center.

She is a member of Yosemite Western Artists and the Mariposa and Madera County Arts Councils. She regularly attends YWA Portrait and Plein Air groups, as well as Zoom life drawing sessions from London Life Drawing during Covid times.

For more information, see her website at www.lura-art.com.