The Arts & Culture Journal

Beka Smith, born in Canterbury in 1975, is an artist of two halves. Much of her working life she’s been involved with design and in 2001 even started her own graphics business. However, if one was to only regard her extensive catalogue of important design clients over the years, one would miss the other side of the artist; the portrait painter.

In 2006 Beka received ‘third place’ in the people’s choice category at the BP Portrait Awards. Her painting was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, in London, the Aberdeen Arts Gallery and Bristol Academy of Arts. The painting was originally commissioned by Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and features the distinguished historian Dr Charles Leslie Wayper.

The battle between working for the love of art and working to be paid for art is a struggle, which many artists and creative people can empathize with. Recently, Beka has been trying to calve out a way of combining the best elements of both worlds i.e. being paid for the love of her art.

Beka’s current project is a collection of portraits that explores the ego and alter-ego. Inspiration for the work has come from many places but an important one is her experiences of the British festival; a place where an average person can throw off their nine-to-five image and become the festival character of their wish.

The portraits, all of which are of a very high quality, manage to take something very essential from her subjects and creates a deep combination of feeling within the paint. Broadly speaking, the major appeal of her portraiture is the way in which she dares to break the stoic conventions of the genre. Whilst she can clearly paint the distinguished gentleman, her real skill comes in transferring that quality to less conventional subjects. The result of which brings to light a far broader range of socio-emotional depths