Batter Up!
Showing from June 1, 2024 – August 3, 2024
Meet the Artist
Sydnei SmithJordan
Sydnei SmithJordan is a freelance artist/illustrator. She has had over twenty-five years in various fields of art. Beginning as a desktop publisher, she moved on to gain attention in the art market as a medical illustrator. Sydnei has chosen to assert most of her attention to fine art and illustration since 1995. She has worked for both commercial and private venues nationally and internationally.
Educated in fine art at College of Design, Art, and Architecture at Santa Monica College under the mentorship of Ronn Davis; she also studied illustration at Rhode Island School of Design. Her works have been collected by such names as Park Overall, Whoopi Goldberg, Patti La Belle, Forrest Whitaker, Denzel Washington, Damien Escobar, and Sylvester Stallone.
Artist Statement
As a child, I would watch my mother draw. She could meet a person once, leave and then draw them with such accuracy. I envied her talent. Little did I know that the pain of my tumultuous environment would lead me to escape through art. I would doodle for hours, losing track of time.
Doodling became designs with meaning. Those designs became pen and pencil drawings. In high school, I mastered markers with an impeccable blending technique. My freshman college entrance portfolio consisted of 5×10 and 8×11 pen ink, and marker drawings.
My mentor, Ronn Davis said, “This is breath-taking. Make it much bigger but with oil paint.”
It was then that my love affair with oil paint was born. I found a home with this medium. When I am painting, I imagine beginning with a simple line drawing and allowing the oil to breathe life into it. When I am creating, I am tranquil, losing track of time.
Painting has saved my life numerous times. First as a child, then again as an adult. I lost movement of my right arm after suffering a brachial plexopathy injury after a double mastectomy. It took me three years to paint again without pain due to nerve injuries. I began with collage, then blended oil with collage until I was fully able to paint again. Then, in 2012 I got an emergency call to take custody of my grandchild.
I stopped painting until 2017 to raise Nia and get her stable. I taught art to disabled children to get by and now trying to get back to art as my career to take care of myself and Jania. My paintings take me to a place of hope, forgiveness, joy, and serenity. Since my love affair with oil began, I have raised the bar by adding collage, metal, and fabric.
My work is in a category of its own called “Pop Fusion”. This style is a dance of graphics, abstraction, and collage meshed with traditional mediums. It integrates reality and fantasy. My paintings are autobiographical dialogues that capture both dreamscapes and reality. I take what is ugly or horrible and make it beautiful. I take that which is beautiful and magnify it. In all pain… beauty exists. In all sorrow… there is serenity.