“What I capture in my art is the intertwining duality of the harsh and the delicate, which is my perception of the world of opposites and also myself. I show the intertwining of these two opposites by combining harsh materials with delicate color, such as in “The Similarities of Opposites”. The harshness is represented through the use of textures such as painted fur, cat litter, matted string, cotton, and wet tissues. Many other found objects find their way onto my paintings, but these seem to entice me the most. The delicate in turn, comes from my use of colors. I use supple pinks, and creams to create a soft contrast to the textures and also to correspond to the colors found in my own skin, hair, and eyes. Furthermore this idea is shown through the combination of rough primitive applications with tedious, delicate actions such as sewing, depicted in the piece “Ritual of Appeasement”. My paintings have always been, consciously or subconsciously, small time-encased self-portraits. They are representations of my physical, emotional or intellectual states at a specific point in time. I have come to use colors associated with my physical appearance to associate my studies of the world of opposites with how this information directly affects me as an artist and also as a human being.”-Veronica Smith