Artist Infuses English Landscapes With Psychedelic Colors

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When David Brian Smith moved to London, a sense of longing slowly began to take hold. The artist had grown up in rural Shropshire, a ceremonial county in England’s West Midlands, and he would often reminisce about the region’s agricultural traditions and natural beauty while living in the city. It should come as no surprise, then, that the countryside plays a major role throughout Smith’s practice.

For years, the artist has produced hallucinatory, technicolor paintings of pastoral landscapes, complete with undulating patterns, rolling hills, and lush vegetation. Smith’s canvases vibrate with personality and texture, thanks in no small part to his attention to detail. He incorporates countless techniques, including cross-hatching, stippling, zigzags, and more to evoke a dynamic sense of movement throughout his bucolic scenes. Floral and organic forms also dance across his paintings, reminding us of their rural sensibility. Gold and silver leaf further enhance each artwork’s ethereality, adding a translucent glow that demands our attention and, by extension, immersion.

“I want to create a world that the viewer can inhabit,” Smith said in a 2023 interview with Telegraph. “I make landscape paintings that I would like to step into. I suppose my paintings become a stage for the figures and animals to act out a narrative.”

In The Perfumed Garden, for instance, horses graze on a hill as the sun beats down on them, its rays snaking across the composition like tentacles. The sun’s beams are organized into jagged, concentric circles that almost resemble a mandala, while colors gradually transition from bright yellows to deep greens and blues. Taken in its entirety, the painting is hypnotic and, above all, psychedelic. That mood is complemented by its title, which references a late-night radio show hosted by John Peel on the British offshore station Radio London in 1967.

“[The station] served as a defining soundtrack to the ‘Summer of Love,’” Smith writes in a social media post. “It featured underground music, progressive rock, and poetry. Peel introduced listeners to psychedelic, folk, and underground artists such as Pink Floyd, Tyrannosaurus Rex, The Doors, and Jefferson Airplane.”

Night Dance is equally vivid, although it leans into something a little more quiet. The painting’s atmosphere is tender and full of nostalgia, reminiscent of a summer evening. The trees, shrubs, and hedges seem to sway in a gentle breeze, their leaves soaked in moonlight. This serenity vanishes once we encounter the sky, which is practically buzzing with organic patterns and motifs, ranging from flowers to starbursts. The juxtaposition is energizing, as if the night itself holds promise.

“Smith’s intense use of brilliant colors and meticulous lines are filled with a sense of reminiscence towards his ancestral history, while his innovative approach to the seemingly traditional genre of landscape paintings lead to enchanting compositions that are highly mesmerizing,” the Asia Art Center, who represents Smith, writes of his work. “These almost biographical canvases portray the artist's love for rural England, his pride in family heritage, and his unconventional interpretation of nature.”

To learn more about the artist and his work, visit David Brian Smith’s website and follow him on Instagram.