Vibrant and Expressive Paintings by New York Artist Pam Smilow

Artist Pam Smilow divides her time between New York City and the coast of Maine, where she has cultivated a thriving career as an artist with both national and international reach.

Her mixed media paintings are evocative dreamscapes, abstract, symbolic, and expressive.

A cozy living room scene featuring a vibrant mixed media painting above a white mantelpiece, with a stylish round coffee table and an inviting fireplace. — Rye, New York. From Better Homes and Gardens Magazine

An abstract mixed media painting featuring a stylized house with floral patterns, surrounded by colorful butterflies and various textured shapes in shades of blue and green. — **Floating House Series: Bird Roof**

Smilow’s work is rich with symbolism, and also feels warm and welcoming, with a child-like joy imbued in her paintings.

Working intuitively, she layers textures, mediums, and collage elements to create pieces that feel both visionary and familiar.

A mixed media painting by Pam Smilow featuring various abstract shapes, colors, and collage elements, including birds, a tree, and geometric patterns against a textured background.

Her art is inviting, uplifting, and designed to bring beauty and joy to the spaces it inhabits.

A mixed media artwork featuring a colorful palm tree design overlaid on vintage ledger pages filled with handwritten notes and accounting records. — **Happy Spring Series: Yellow Palm Tree**

Raised in the only fully realized Frank Lloyd Wright community outside New York City, and the daughter of a celebrated mid-century modern furniture designer, Smilow grew up immersed in design.

“I am an intuitive painter. I often begin without consciously thinking and one stroke builds onto another, suggestive of a direction which I follow.

My vocabulary consists of imagery a lot of which has stuck with me since my childhood: houses, birds, ladders, flowers, moons.

Nature is probably my biggest inspiration. I also rely heavily on my dreams. I work in layers, often staying within the same family of color, and draw a lot on memory and emotion.

-Pamela Smilow

Portrait of an artist standing in front of an abstract colorful painting with a soft, dreamy background. — Pamela Smilow with her paintings.

Her work has flourished in the last several years, especially during the Pandemic, where she not only expanded her painting repertoire, but also began blogging as a way of connecting with her audience.

A collage of twelve mixed media portraits, each featuring individuals with varied appearances and styles, blending vibrant colors and abstract elements. — Portraits Smilow made during the pandemic.

Her weekly substack newsletter, Things We Love is an eclectic mix of inspirational topics including music, art, science, poetry, recipes, interviews etc.