Artist Amanda Michelle Smith paints storied vignettes on clay: narratives that examine innocence and vulnerability with dark forces at play. Smith presents stylized young girls in bubblegum forests and towns with blackened backgrounds, heightening a sense of wonder within a dangerous world. Her work uncovers the fragility of girls within dominating powers of social, political, religious, and community control. Smith exposes these powers and the lasting effects of childhood trauma through her figures of a young girl.   

In When Trauma Comes to Town, a young child’s trauma takes the form of a monstrous red claw, gripping her neck and covering her mouth as she lays flat on the forest floor in horror. Smith presents the lingering and devastating psychological impact of trauma by repeating images of the child’s figure in slow motion. The girl’s dress becomes drained of color, and the curve of her outstretched hands are frozen with fear.  

-Jill Ahlberg Yohe, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art