Artist Biography

After a career as a New York Fashion Editor and working alongside the greats of fashion photography, Aline Smithson discovered the family Rolleiflex and never looked back. Now represented by galleries across the country and published throughout the world, Aline continues to create her award-winning photography with humor, compassion, and a 50-year-old camera. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including the PDN Photo Annual, Communication Arts Photo Annual, Eyemazing, Artworks, Shots, Pozytyw, and Silvershotz magazines. She has exhibited widely including solo shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Oswald Gallery, and Wallspace Gallery in Seattle. Aline has been the Gallery Editor for Light Leaks Magazine, writes and edits the blog, Lenscratch, and has been curating exhibitions for a number of galleries and on-line magazines. She was nominated for The Excellence in Photographic Teaching Award in 2008 and 2009 and for the Santa Fe Prize in Photography in 2009 by the Santa Fe Center of Photography. She was a 2009 juror for Critical Mass, and a reviewer at Review LA in 2010.

Artist Statement:
Unreal Reality
As a child, I loved nothing more than to imagine the world in miniature. I created novels within my doll house. I built entire worlds inside a walnut shell or matchbox. Visiting a model railroad display was my nirvana.  In addition to miniature realities, I was also drawn to anything fake.  For example, my dream was to have a life size replica of a horse, not a real horse, but one that I could ride in my imagination. Growing up near Hollywood and the world of movie making, I was continually intrigued by what was faux and what was real.  It was a revelation to me that when I first visited the Gand Canyon I discovered it looked exactly like the one at Disneyland.

As an adult, I found another miniature world at Legoland—cities, towns, animals, and people built with incredible exactitude. But this time, it took a toy camera to make it more of a reality. I discovered that when color and scale are removed and sharpness of a lens, softened, it changes one’s perception into believing these places and animals really exist. What better way to see the world, than through tiny pieces of plastic combined into new realities.

Captured with the distorted lens of a Diana toy camera, these miniatures become almost lifelike when color and scale are removed, it changes one’s perception into believing a belief that these places and animals really exist.

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Artist Statement:
Arrangement in Green and Black: Portrait of the Photographer’s Mother Series

This series had serendipitous beginnings.  I found a small print of Whistler’s “Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother” at a neighborhood garage sale.  That same weekend I found a leopard coat and hat, a 195os cat painting and what looked like the exact chair from Whistler’s painting.  That started my thinking about the idea of portraiture, the strong compositional relationships going on within the painting and the evocative nature of unassuming details.

This series incorporates traditional photographic techniques yet becomes richer through the treatment of hand-painting.  It is my intent to have the viewer see the work in a historical context with the addition of color, and at the same time, experience Whistler’s simple yet brilliant formula for composition.  My patient 85 year old mother posed in over 20 ensembles, but unfortunately passed away prior to seeing the finished series.  I am grateful for her sense of humor and for the time this series allowed us to be together.

Artist Statement:
Diversity in Development

As a mother, wife, teacher, editor, person engaged in the pathos and miracle of the world we live in, I look to tell stories that are familiar, yet unexpected. The poignancy of childhood, aging, relationships, family, and moments of introspection or contemplation continue to draw my interest. I want to create photographs that evoke universal memories. It’s about finding simplicity in the complex, creating a memory that never happened, finding humor or giving something dignity or a second glance. It’s celebrating life in a split second.