Toru Sugita

Biography Conner is known for distinctive color woodcuts. Using non-endangered wood and brilliant color palettes, Conner creates conceptual woodcuts exposing the intrinsic wood grain. Conner exhibits nationally and internationally. Woodcuts are included in over fifty museum and corporate print collections in the U.S. and internationally: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; Equitable Center, NY; Colorado Springs; Capital One Art Collection, Austin; Fidelity Investments; State Department Art in Embassies; New York Public Library; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; Library of Congress; List Visual Arts Center, MIT; Credit Suisse First Boston, London; Federal Reserve Bank, Richmond; University Health System, San Antonio; Ritz Carlton Hotels; and Neiman Marcus. Reviews and announcements of Conner’s publications appear in Art In Print, Art On Paper, New Art Examiner, Who's Who in American Art, and Who's Who of American Women. She collaborates with Katherine Brimberry, Flatbed Press, Austin, TX, publisher of her woodcuts; and Leslie Miller, Grenfell Press, NYC. She was born in Wilmington, NC, 1948. She received a BFA from Salem College, Winston-Salem, NC; and MFA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is Professor Emerita at University North Carolina Wilmington. She lives in Wilmington, NC.            

When Smith was accepted by the Royal College of Art in London to participate in the Post Experience Programme, which offered him the opportunity to draw from cadavers at the University of London’s School of Medicine, he worked on variations of images, including interpretative anatomical sketches of body parts. These drawings are captured in his powerful series “Silent Orators”.  Additional work on this series includes the lithographs produced in Berlin, Germany, working at the Professional Association of Berlin Artists (BBK) printmaking facilities, as well as etchings from acrylic hard grounds, and the non-toxic etching process using photopolymer film. Smith developed his “Berlin Air Lift” studies drawn in situ at Berlin’s Templehof airport, and later re-interpreted, and printed them as linear images with the photopolymer film process at Berlin’s Druckstelle Printmaking Studios. Continuing his work at BBK, Smith further developed a selection of drawings done in India and produced as lithographs.Other thematic works i.e., Smith’s etching editions of “Warrior Suit of Armor”, “The London Bagpiper” and “Italian Youth”, as well as conté crayon drawings and digital prints, represent interpretations of images captured in selected art museums abroad and in the U.S.  Currently, Smith produces drawings and prints in his printmaking studio in San Diego, California, and works periodically in professional printmaking facilities in Berlin, Germany.Smith’s prints have received juried awards, including a purchase prize by the Pasadena Art Museum for its permanent collection.  His heavily embossed etching triptych titled  ‘Ranger I,II, III’  was  on loan from the Los Angeles County Art Museum Rental Gallery  to the NASA Jet Propulsion  Lab in Pasadena California.  Smith’s work has been shown in numerous private and public solo and group juried exhibitions. His works are currently being prepared for national and international exhibitions, and for public and private galleries and collections.