Northwestern Gallery

Northwestern Gallery possesses those rare qualities we find in but a few individuals/groups.

While extensive time and resources go into the creation of the work presented here, included in them are also those intangibles you’re unlikely to see elsewhere.

The artwork of this husband-and-wife creative team has been exhibited nationally for the past 35 years. The artwork of Rose J. Smith and Melvin R. Smith represents an extraordinary coming together of history, social observation, artistic commentary, and childhood reminiscence.

Their fascinating art reveals what Oklahoma City News Paper critic, John Brandenburg, called “A powerful and visually stimulating journey."

Artist Statement

"My drawings, watercolors, oils, and acrylics have always been for me the means by which I render my true feelings to the world. In essence, my art is a confession made to clarify what I have witnessed in life.

While practicing free association, I move back and forth between my conscious and unconscious worlds in search of my innermost feelings about nature.

Surrealism has always been a strong force in my paintings. I don't know where it came from; it was just always there like the color of my skin.

My images have evolved and are wedded in patterns of light and color, reflecting my visual reactions to the world around me. I create dreamlike characters from another place and time.

To me, art seems to cleanse the dust from the soul of everyday life. When I do art, there is a quiet, calm, pure harmony, and music inside me — and that's when I hear the beautiful song of the brush. It consumes me like a Billie Holiday song — it's medicine for my soul."

– Rose J. Smith