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Michael Thornton-Smith, began with an exploration into the dynamic forms and saturated colors of selected flowers. “As I became more comfortable working with a subject matter I had shied away from previously; I began to play with enormity, scale and abstraction of the subject attempting to achieve a luminosity inherent in particular varieties of flowers. The dandelion flower gone to seed became a jumping off point to create cosmic mandalas of light. At first they were monochromatic paintings concentrating on the essence of form but eventually led to working with ethereal and tertiary colors. This is an ongoing project.

My paintings express a response to my perception of nature, to the transient acts of weather and the tenuous beauty of spontaneous cloud formations, captured in a fleeting moment. Traveling has been a source of inspiration for my work, taking me throughout the British Isles and Europe, and later through North Africa and East Africa. There is a body of my work that celebrates these experiences.

Sometimes I work from numerous studies, not always from the same location, but all with a view to a larger work. I love the skies, the source of light and the constantly changing barometric configurations. The expansive, magical thunderstorms over the savannah, the atmospheric conditions and their effect on the terrain; and more recently, the alluvial landscapes of the Hudson River Valley and the Long Island Sound.

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