An Earthing
Solo show
Tabula Rasa Gallery Beijing
29 November 2025 – 10 January 2026
Solo show
Tabula Rasa Gallery Beijing
29 November 2025 – 10 January 2026
The Luminosity from Within
Light in Cheri Smith’s paintings is approached and composed in a highly distinctive way. It relies on an inner luminosity rather than an external source of light projected onto the surface of the canvas. She achieves this effect by applying thin tonal glazes over a smooth, white-primed surface, allowing the glow to emerge subtly from the layers beneath instead of using white oil paint. This self-contained illumination mirrors her approach to subject matter, emphasizing the entirety of the composition rather than dividing it into distinct spatial realms, as Bruegel the Elder might with heaven and hell.
This approach to light aligns with Smith’s broader engagement with time: she invites the viewer to slow down and spend time with her work. While colour and light are traditionally used to guide the viewer’s perception toward a focal point, Smith deliberately resists this, allowing her compositions to unfold with subtlety and ambiguity. For this exhibition, Cheri Smith uses oil paint mixed by hand with safflower oil. This choice supports the translucency required for her thin glazing technique, allowing light to emerge from within the painted surface and contributing to the quiet luminosity characteristic of her work.
The process of building Cheri Smith’s paintings is dialogic: figures and animals emerge, interact, and evolve over multiple sittings, with some elements erased or reworked, unfolding as evolving stories. Her commitment to natural pigments grounds her work both materially and historically, connecting it to ancient cave paintings that represent some of humanity’s earliest attempts to depict the natural world. Engaging with the unknown is central to her practice, reflected in her approach to colour. As she explains, “I am so interested in mystery, that I feel like giving more colour is giving more information. And it’s not allowing that mystery and imagination on behalf of the viewer, for them to place their own thoughts.”
Her attraction to miniature scale is rooted in intimacy: the close relationship between hand and eye, and the heightened attentiveness required in both making and viewing. Smith’s engagement with miniature painting is informed by her admiration for illuminated manuscripts of the Gothic period, particularly those by the Limbourg brothers and Giovannino de Grassi. These artists’ intricate and imaginative visual worlds would have been familiar to Vittore Pisanello, whose work similarly demonstrates an exceptional attentiveness to scale. One of Smith’s favourite paintings, The Vision of Saint Eustace by Pisanello, exemplifies this tradition of close observation and compositional complexity, qualities that resonate strongly within her own small-scale, meticulously constructed works.
While Smith’s painterly language is rooted in historical context and draws on established techniques and visual traditions, it is also shaped by her direct, organic engagement with the world around her, giving her paintings a distinctive, grounded vitality.
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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.
Light in Cheri Smith’s paintings is approached and composed in a highly distinctive way. It relies on an inner luminosity rather than an external source of light projected onto the surface of the canvas. She achieves this effect by applying thin tonal glazes over a smooth, white-primed surface, allowing the glow to emerge subtly from the layers beneath instead of using white oil paint. This self-contained illumination mirrors her approach to subject matter, emphasizing the entirety of the composition rather than dividing it into distinct spatial realms, as Bruegel the Elder might with heaven and hell.
This approach to light aligns with Smith’s broader engagement with time: she invites the viewer to slow down and spend time with her work. While colour and light are traditionally used to guide the viewer’s perception toward a focal point, Smith deliberately resists this, allowing her compositions to unfold with subtlety and ambiguity. For this exhibition, Cheri Smith uses oil paint mixed by hand with safflower oil. This choice supports the translucency required for her thin glazing technique, allowing light to emerge from within the painted surface and contributing to the quiet luminosity characteristic of her work.
The process of building Cheri Smith’s paintings is dialogic: figures and animals emerge, interact, and evolve over multiple sittings, with some elements erased or reworked, unfolding as evolving stories. Her commitment to natural pigments grounds her work both materially and historically, connecting it to ancient cave paintings that represent some of humanity’s earliest attempts to depict the natural world. Engaging with the unknown is central to her practice, reflected in her approach to colour. As she explains, “I am so interested in mystery, that I feel like giving more colour is giving more information. And it’s not allowing that mystery and imagination on behalf of the viewer, for them to place their own thoughts.”
Her attraction to miniature scale is rooted in intimacy: the close relationship between hand and eye, and the heightened attentiveness required in both making and viewing. Smith’s engagement with miniature painting is informed by her admiration for illuminated manuscripts of the Gothic period, particularly those by the Limbourg brothers and Giovannino de Grassi. These artists’ intricate and imaginative visual worlds would have been familiar to Vittore Pisanello, whose work similarly demonstrates an exceptional attentiveness to scale. One of Smith’s favourite paintings, The Vision of Saint Eustace by Pisanello, exemplifies this tradition of close observation and compositional complexity, qualities that resonate strongly within her own small-scale, meticulously constructed works.
While Smith’s painterly language is rooted in historical context and draws on established techniques and visual traditions, it is also shaped by her direct, organic engagement with the world around her, giving her paintings a distinctive, grounded vitality.
Download PDF
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.
Tabula Rasa Gallery (London)
Unit One, 99 East Road,
Hoxton, London
N1 6AQ
Unit One, 99 East Road,
Hoxton, London
N1 6AQ
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