MEL SMOTHERS

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Mel Smother’s work is motivated by subjects inherited from our times, drawn from personal narratives, reflecting his interest in philosophy, contemporary thought, and sources that span art history.
Smother’s painting series, “After Dorothea Lange,” " History Paintings," and sculpture series, "The Climes Are a Changin," are compelled by witnessing the class division between my subjects and the privileged politicians and corporations, who discredit scientific and social evidence for their own personal power and greed, resulting in environmental, climate and human disasters. 

BIO

Mel Smothers is an American contemporary artist born on the west coast of the USA in 1947. Smothers evolved as an artist in Pop Art America during the 60's and 70’s, working alongside his contemporary Andy Warhol and Wayne Thiebaud. Thiebaud would later become Smothers’ University professor and a forefront figure of American Pop Art.

Smothers currently exhibits at Art Lives Here, and Carter-Burden Gallery, New York City. Hay Hill Gallery, London. TAG Gallery Los Angeles. JAG Gallery, Key West Florida and Archival Gallery, Sacramento, California. In 2006 he was selected to ‘Artists of Year,’ exhibition at Cooper-Union, NYC. He has taught Art at the University of California, University of Idaho and University of Nevada.
He is a student of fly fishing and jazz violin and is author of the podcast Lake Tahoe Drone.
He has a hard-to-find studio along the shore in Lake Tahoe

He holds an MFA from the University of Idaho.