Cheri Smith 2025.11 — Tabula Rasa Gallery

An Earthing
Solo show
Tabula Rasa Gallery Beijing
29 November 2025 – 10 January 2026

Artist statement

There is a preoccupation with the ground inherent in this new body of work, whether through feet firmly planted, the creeping proliferation of weeds, or a heavy falling down to earth. To say “an earthing” is almost to say “unearthing,” bringing to the surface layers of curiosity and mystery embedded within these paintings.

An interest in the primal, natural, and earthly is evident in my colour palette: green earth, raw umber, and stil de grain, natural pigments of green, brown, and gold originally derived from stones and berries. Many paintings are monochromatic, rendered entirely in greens (verdaille) or browns (brunaille), and applied tonally in thin layers so that they possess a strange inner glow.

The paintings are inhabited by recurring figures: plants such as toadflax and wood sorrel; animals such as deer, dogs, crocodiles and snakes; and humans, both embodied and skeletal. These beings reappear within the same frame, sometimes stepping out from one painting and into another. They are observed and imagined, subjects and symbols, alive and dead. Life is embodied, entangled, layered, and cyclical.

I paint these beings one at a time, allowing the ground to emerge around the bodies upon it. The composition and potential narrative are continually changing during the painting process. One body reacts to another. The logic is that of a puzzle or a pattern, tessellating and organic, or like atoms in the air, jostling, reacting, and connecting together.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Cheri Smith (b. 1991, Essex, UK) currently lives and works in London. Her work explores themes of animality, embodiment, wildness, and strangeness. Cheri’s painted world and its symbolic elements are deeply rooted in the principles of nature. Earthy colours and a sensitivity to natural details and textures draw attention to the organic cycles of life. Animals and plants recur as lively symbols, weaving individual elements into a collective narrative.

Through her unique lens, Cheri addresses complex themes such as life and death, reaching toward the origins and continuities of existence. She paints with oil, egg tempera, and glue distemper on various supports including canvas, wood panels, and book covers. Beyond traditional techniques, Smith employs a distinctive method of layering thin, tonal glazes to create a subtle luminosity. Her paintings are not merely individual images but living components that blur the boundaries between reality and imagination.

Cheri Smith received her BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Norwich University of the Arts in 2013, then completed her post-graduate degree in Drawing from Royal Drawing School in 2018, where she was awarded the Trustees Prize. She has been a recipient of residencies at Hanover Grange, Jamaica (2019), Borgo Pignano, Italy (2020), and Dumfries House, Scotland (2022). Her recent exhibitions include: An Earthing, Tabula Rasa Gallery (Solo, Beijing, 2025); Deja Vu, Galleria Annarumma (Napoli, 2024); Swallowing Figments, Fortnight Institute (Solo, New York, 2024); Four-Folds, Lychee One (London, 2024); Here be Dragons, James Freeman Gallery (London, 2023); The Consolation of Clinamen, Tabula Rasa Gallery (Beijing, 2023); Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize (online, 2023); It’s Better to Be Cats Than Be Loved, Tabula Rasa Gallery (London, 2022); Bookworks, James Freeman Gallery (London, 2022); Nine Lives, Fortnight Institute (New York, 2021); Winter Solstice 2020 Art, Books & Ephemera, Fortnight Institute (New York, 2020); The Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, the Mall Galleries (London, 2019); and Best of the Drawing Year at Christie’s (London, 2018), among others.