Meet the Artist

Katy Smith is a plein air landscape artist specializing in paintings of locations on the Central Coast of California. She is a representational artist who finds her inspiration directly from the world around her, painting in the California Impressionist Style. She enjoys painting locations of historical significance both to capture their beauty and to draw awareness to those places that need to be conserved for future generations.

She has been influenced in her work by many notable artists both present and past including Joseph Zbukvic, Thomas Schaller, Elizabeth Tolley, Chiura Obata, Milford Zornes, Edgar Payne and Albert Bierstadt. But her love for plein air painting runs in the family and the paintings she grew up with on the walls of her grandparents’, parents’ and relatives’ homes had the largest impact on her. Two relatives were plein air painters in Southern California: Richard Earl “Twister Mac” McBurney was a member of the Desert Art Center in the mid 1900s and James Edwin McBurney was a key player in the development of the Art Colony at Laguna Beach in the early 1900s. Another relative, Ethel McBurney, was a prolific painter as well.

Smith makes her own mark in the Art world employing a classic California Style that perfectly captures the modest beauty of the Central Coast landscape where she calls home. Smith paints en plein air (on location outdoors) and also in her studio working from plein air sketches and photographs from her day trips and vacations along the Pacific Coast of California.

She is very uniquely gifted to see and capture the essence of her subject as it truly is, because she was born with a condition called Total Aphantasia. This means she does not experience any of the 5 senses in her imagination, including images in her mind’s eye. Since she cannot imagine things, she relies entirely on what can actually be seen and felt in front of her as she paints her subject from life.

When asked how Aphantasia affects her artistry, Smith said, “Every painting tells a story and becomes a memory in and of itself. It’s my pleasure to share these moments in time with others to give them a glimpse into how I experience the world. Some might think that Aphantasia would limit me as an artist because I can’t picture things to paint, but I like to look on the positive side and think it is a gift that makes it possible for me to focus on my subject without distraction. Having Aphantasia not only informs my view of the world as a painter, but it also becomes the driving force for my creativity. Painting allows me to preserve visual memories for myself so I can experience them again. Each painting is a souvenir of a day in my life, a moment captured in paint of a specific place and time where I got to fully experience my surroundings. Each painting is a visual journal of sorts.”

Smith lives with her husband and 4 young children in Orcutt, a small town in the beautiful Santa Maria Valley in Northern Santa Barbara County. She studied to be a teacher at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo where she was encouraged to be an Art Specialist. Smith has taught Art for various community organizations and public schools over the last 20 years. She currently teaches weekly classes and workshops from Dakota Hill Art Studio, where she inspires the next generation of artists.

Galleries:

San Luis Obispo County

Santa Barbara County

Art Associations:

Press: