About

Mary Claire Smith’s work is rooted in a sense of place within the natural environment, employing abstracted forms and lines reminiscent of botanical life to evoke imagined worlds – below water, above the earth – a return to something ancient and deep, wild and mysterious: of nature and of the body. She studies patterns of growth and rhythm, dialogues of expansion and contraction. Mary Claire works in series, repeating and revisiting archetypal forms: tree, plant, mountain, cloud, cave, circles and spheres. A current series uses simple, pared-down forms depicting the elemental forces of water, earth, fire and air. Another employs a daily walk, to create a journal of shapes and marks: land forms, patterns on water, cloud formations. Her work spans printmaking, painting and drawing, using Japanese and Khadi papers, botanical and traditional inks, paint, printing from woodcuts and grains, drypoint and screen print.

Mary Claire Smith has postgraduates in printmaking and illustration from Central St Martins and holds a BA in fine art from Portsmouth Polytechnic.
She is the owner/curator of Frank Gallery in Whitstable, which opened in 2006, and has been a studio assistant and editioning printer at Paupers Press and Hope Sufferance Studios in London. She has taught Art and Design on Further Education courses in London, and worked as a freelance illustrator for a number of years.

Recent Shows
Frank Gallery, Whitstable, solo show of works on paper: From Ice Cream Hill to Long Rock, 2025
The Lido Stores, Margate, If Heaven Falls, the alternative Valentine’s exhibition, 2025
The Linden Hall Winter Show 2024–25
The Lido Open, Margate, 2024
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, 2024
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, 2023
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, 2022
Hausprint, London, Group Show, 2018

Representation
Columbia Road Gallery, London, showing at The Affordable Art Fair
columbiaroadgallery.com
Kobi & Teal, Frome kobiandteal.co.uk
Frank Gallery, Whitstable frankworks.eu

@mary.claire_smith