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STORY BY JENNIFER MYERS | PHOTOS BY EWAN NICHOLSON
Evan Smibert
Drawing as meditation between artist and stranger

Evan Smibert is experimenting with meditation and impermanence in a performance art piece. Perched atop a Zafu and Zabuton (meditation cushions), he and his subject experience the process of art creation together. While maintaining constant eye contact for the length of time it takes to create a drawing, Smibert carefully observes and draws in layers of charcoal, without ever looking down at the page.

“For me, drawing is an act of meditation. The connection you make when really seeing—not just looking at—a stranger is really intimate,” says Smibert. “So, the act of drawing is a meditation between me and a stranger, where we will go through the process of art creation together and experience it on a different level. There is a heightened energy through the process that is difficult to put in words.”

The impermanence of the process is intentional. Smibert, whose other creations have come in the form of wall drawings that are erased and redrawn over, says his work is rooted in the principle of change and “non-doing.” It is a reminder to experience the journey of life rather than to focus on the outcomes or products of our efforts.

“So often in life we’re more ‘human-doings’ than human-beings. But everything in life is impermanent and always changing—even art—so we shouldn’t cling to things so much. Meditation is about not producing anything. This is artwork about valuing the process rather than the end product and switching from doing to being.”

Smibert has exhibited and performed his work in The Nickle Arts Museum, Virginia Christopher Fine Art and has taught at the Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery. He plans to continue his studio work, attend residencies and apply for exhibitions across Canada.