Bonnie Smerdon

(b. 1992, Bellingham, WA. Lives and works in Bellingham, WA.)

Bonnie Smerdon is an artist based in Bellingham, Washington. Her paintings dwell on landscape and reflect her daily surroundings. Using acrylic paint, she recreates the play of light on the canvas through glazing and palette knife techniques. Her paintings oscillate between realism and abstraction with each work acting as a vignette to a specific place or memory.

Smerdon holds reverence for the places she visits in nature. Time outdoors gives voice to what she makes in the studio. Whether Smerdon is on a long- distance bike trip or backpacking to alpine lakes, the dynamics of the trip, both in planning and action, relate back to her process in the studio. She creates artwork to honor the land she witnesses.

The intersection of wilderness spaces and residential settings is a primary focus throughout Smerdon’s art. While the figure is not present in her work, there is an awareness of how humans impact the landscapes in her paintings. These features can be found in the highways, street lamps, and architecture present in her art. Bonnie creates work in response to both the beauty of the environment as well as the ongoing threats of human impact in the tenuous spaces we inhabit.

Bonnie Smerdon received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and sculpture from Western Washington University. Smerdon has shown her work in galleries throughout the Pacific Northwest including Ryan James Fine Arts, Geheim Gallery, Tashiro Kaplan Studio 103, The Jansen Arts Center and the Western Gallery. Bonnie has devised and participated in multiple pop- up gallery events and performance projects with her peers. Publications include What’s Up! Magazine: Artists of the North Sound, and Future Fields. Smerdon has been an artist in residence at The Old School, in Hrisey, Iceland, and Sou’wester, in Seaview, Washington.

Above: Bonnie Smerdon, Highway 20, 2022, Acrylic on canvas, 16 x 16 in.