Biography

Nancy Turner-Smith is a Los Angeles artist who has a sincere belief in the power of myth, memory, and nature as metaphors for creating statements of faith in timeless, natural forces. This belief is expressed through her prints, drawings and artist-made books.

Nancy studied drawing and scientific illustration at Die Kunstgewerbeschule der Stadt Bern, Switzerland, and received her B.A. degree in Painting and Printmaking from San Diego State University. From there, she returned to Los Angeles and began working in the film industry as a photo retoucher and compositor on film. During this time, the industry was moving from traditional methods of working on film to working with computer graphics. Nancy became interested in this new process and began incorporating it into her studio work. It added a new layer to her work and was a natural step forward for her to understand the world and our place in it as more and more technology is introduced. 

In 2008 she founded Hollyvista Press, a small printmaking studio doing custom work for artists and photographers. This allowed her to work with other artists and to continue to explore and develope her own work.

Nancy begins her work with pencil, ink, watercolor, and pastel drawings. These drawings of plants, reflections, water, pollen, wind, birds, and animals are drawn in the field and in the studio. These drawings are then digitally scanned. Scanning transforms the image from a classical drawing into the world of synthesized drawing. These transformed drawings are combined and manipulated to create new images and compositions. The original works of art that result are printed in her studio as signed limited edition prints or developed into artist-made books.

Currently, she is creating a three-volume set of artist-made books. Falling Rockets, Shooting Stars and the Sound of Bees, plus The Quaking Valley are completed editions. The Deep Red of Autumn is a work in progress.

For many years Nancy also practiced the art of sheepherding, competing in sheepdog trials and traveling to remote rural areas in the United States. This experience pushed her out of the studio into nature in a way that strengthened and deepened her art form. 

Nancy, her husband, and two Border Collies divide their time between Los Angeles and Cuddy Valley, a high mountain rural community in Frazier Park, California, about an hour and a half north of Los Angeles. When she is not in her studio, she is out tending their land or exploring the open spaces of America.

Awards and Exhibitions

Nancy was awarded several art residencies for her drawing and printmaking work. These residencies took place at Crater Lake National Park, the Morris Graves Foundation in Loleta, California, and at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California.

Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues, which include:

  • Decade by Decade, Women Artists of California, Long Beach Museum of Art 

  • ELEMENTAL/Seeing the Light, The Sturt Haaga Gallery at Descanso Gardens in La Canada, California

  • Wandering Air, a solo exhibition, North Hills Exhibitions, Los Angeles, California

  • Perspectives, the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, as part of the National Feminist Art Project

  • Silicon Sands, Las Cruces Fine Art Museum, Las Cruces, New Mexico

  • Digitalis: Patterns, The Digitalis Digital Art Society, in collaboration with the New Forms Festival, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

  • 2004 Iowa Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Miniature Prints, The University of Iowa

  • ACM SIGGRAPH, San Diego, and its traveling exhibition in Paris, France, at the Ecole du Louvre, the Salon d'Automne, Espace Auteuil Centennial Exhibition, and in the exhibition Drawing with the Synthesized Image at Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie as well as at The Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio and The University of Southern Florida, downtown Media Arts Center

  • The Electronic Invitational Kiosk Show, Novak Gallery at the Beecher Center For Technology in the Arts, The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio

  • Crater Lake Centennial Exhibitions at Crater Lake National Park and the Schneider Museum of Art, Ashland, Oregon

  • Regarding Nature, The National Audubon Society and SITE Gallery, Playa del Rey, California

CV available on request