“The images on this page are initially created as silver gelatin prints. They are usually toned and sometimes hand painted. I have them scanned on a drum scanner and pigment prints are made of them. This pigment is then lifted off in transparent acrylic media. The resulting acrylic skin is then mounted onto painted, textured wooden panels and displayed in rusted, welded steel frames.”

"Smith Eliot's photographic, mixed media works presented in her recent exhibition "Translucence" exceed their careful crafting as photographs bearing seamless provocations of power, beauty, and fear. The work centers itself upon an intuitive exploration that surfaces the wants and anxieties of women in relationship to passing youth, and sexual desirability. The lush, seductive imagery somewhat performative in nature, is magnetic and draws upon the power of unleashed, female beauty and the darkness that seems to surround beauty's impracticality. In some of these works feminine beauty is a useless tool that bodes darkness and damage. In others the images celebrate the inner strength of the mischievous imagination of women as warriors who fight for and against themselves. All the works in "Translucence" provide an invigorating gaze at and through the skin of women via Smith Eliot's penetrating lens and protracted, meticulous process."

Marie Sivak, 2004
Director, Northview Gallery