Time Capsule: Erin Hughes and Liz Rundorff Smith
Art & Light Gallery presents Time Capsule, an exhibition of work by Erin Hughes (Anderson, S.C.) and Liz Rundorff Smith (Greenville, S.C.) launching on the Art & Light website and in the gallery at 10am (EST) on Tuesday, September 29 with an opening reception on Friday, October 2 from 6:00 – 9:00 PM.
Erin Hughes received a BA in Biology from James Madison University and an MA in Science Education from Boston University. Hughes began working with film photography in high school and started painting in 2015. Always motivated to learn and further her technical proficiency, she honed her skills in the encaustic and oil painting mediums under the tutelage of artists like Lisa Pressman, Mark Russell, and Jeffrey Hirst. Hughes explores the connection between beauty and loss in her work.
For Hughes, the encaustic work included in the Time Capsule exhibition explores our limited ability to retain fleeting visual experiences in the natural world. Because we can only hold onto fragmented details of a landscape, we ultimately experience a deep sense of loss as time passes and we lose clarity. With the passage of time, the memory of a place is expressed in fading light, deep shadow, and the layered, obscured textures of the wax itself.
Liz Rundorff Smith received a BA in Studio Art with a concentration in sculpture from the College of Wooster in Wooster, OH, and an MFA in Painting from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She studied abroad at The Marchutz School of Painting in Aix-en-Provence, France, and the British Institute of Florence in Florence, Italy and was later awarded a fellowship and residency at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her work can be found in private and corporate collections, including the Marilyn Monroe Bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel and Sun City Showa Kinen Koen in Tachikawa, Japan.
In Time Capsule, Rundorff Smith confronts the feeling of loss that accompanies physical deterioration and the uncomfortable reality of existing in an aging body. She processes this vulnerability by gathering paper scraps left over from her templates of vessel forms, transforming discarded remnants into entirely new, hybrid structures. By recycling fragments of paper that would usually be thrown away, she shows that time and experience are never truly wasted. Ultimately, the work centers on rebuilding, framing her change in creative process as a continuous journey rather than a break from the past.
