Beka was born in Canterbury, Kent in 1975, daughter of the international concert pianist Ronald Smith.
After completing her GCSEs and A-levels at Ashford School for Girls in 1993, she went on to study at the Kent Institute of Art and Design (Maidstone) and Hastings College of Arts and Technology. She graduated from the University of the West of England (with a BA Honours degree in Art and Visual Culture) in 1998. Throughout her years of training she has counterbalanced her official design and technology-based studies with a private passion for painting, drawing and in particular portraiture.
She started her own business in 2001 using her own graphic images and illustration work which she applied to design-led products including T-shirts, greetings cards and prints. A grant from the Princes Trust enabled her to exhibit at trade fairs including ‘Top Drawer’, where her work was spotted by a clothing company based in the West Country and she was commissioned to design a series of characters under the name ‘Stargirl’. She was head-hunted by Locomocean, a design company based in the London's iconic Oxo Tower. Here she produced work from product design and development, through to packaging and graphics work for large companies, including John Lewis, Debenhams and Urban Outfitters, alongside many other stores and shops. She was made senior designer there in 2006, while continuing to produce portraits in her own time. She has since given up her work as a designer, to pursue portraiture full-time.
In 2005 Beka was commissioned by Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge to make a pencil portrait of Dr Charles Leslie Wayper, the distinguished historian, academic educator and Life Fellow of the College. She was so struck by him that she undertook a more involved portrait of Dr Wayper. This was short listed for the BP Portrait Awards 2006 and voted third in ‘The Peoples Choice’. It was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery, London, Aberdeen Arts Gallery and Bristol Academy of Arts.
Beka is currently working on a series of portraits which explore the multiple personalities of the subject, reflecting the subject's day-to-day character (in familiar surroundings) and the subject's changed character (in unfamiliar, temporary surroundings). Some of the paintings in this series will be featured in Beka's forthcoming exhibition ‘Ego Alter Ego’ scheduled for October 2009, at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge). Beka is accepting commissions for portraits in this series (as well as more conventional portraits). Click on ‘Commissions’ at the bottom of this page for further information.
Beka has recently become a member of Second Floor Studios and Arts where she has a studio. She is currently working on commissions as well as a new series of work,not portraits.These will be shown for the first time at the Studio open day in November. Full details can be found on www.secondfloor.co.uk
You can now also follow Beka on the following:
