Art Peaks – ‘Laura, Twin Peaks’ By Owen Smith

To kick off 2025, I’m returning to the continuing series featuring Twin Peaks art titled “Art Peaks.” For this story, I’m shining a light on a stunning piece by California-based illustrator Owen Smith. The artwork was created for the Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me 20th Anniversary Exhibit for Copro Gallery held in spring 2012.

TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME 20TH ANNIVERSARY EXHIBIT AT COPRO GALLERY

From April 21-May 12, 2012, Copro Gallery, located at 2525 Michigan Ave T5 in Santa Monica, California, held a large group exhibition celebrating the 20th Anniversary of my favorite David Lynch film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. I’ve previously highlighted other works from this show including SHAG’s “An Old Woman and Her Grandson,” Bob Balistreri’s “Bob on Formica,” Eric White’s “Let’s Rock,” and “The Peek” by Scott C.

Founded in 1992 by Joe Copro, Greg Escalante and Douglas Nason, the Gallery serves as “an entity to curate art exhibitions of emerging artists and publish the highest quality limited edition prints.” A dedicated page to the Twin Peaks-themed exhibition is still found on their website today along with the press release above.

WHO IS ARTIST OWEN SMITH?

Owen Smith is an award-winning illustrator whose clients include Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Time, and Rolling Stone. His cover art and interior booklet illustrations for Aimee Mann’s CD “The Forgotten Arm” helped win a Grammy Award for Best Packaging.

Smith lives with his wife and two sons in the San Francisco Bay Area and, for the past 19 years, has been a tenured professor at the California College of the Arts. Throughout most of the 2010s, he served as the chair of illustration program department.

He has created 20 cover illustrations for The New Yorker magazine including this Halloween-themed artwork from November 6, 2000.

His other clients include the San Francisco Opera, and BART.  In 2019, he created a series of stamps for the United Nations celebrating the International Labor Organization.  Owen’s influences come from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) artists of the 1930s, Diego Rivera, and the lurid covers of pulp magazines and dime-store paperbacks of the 1930s and 1940s. His paintings have been featured in exhibitions in New York, Rome, and Milan, as well as solo shows in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The WPA-style reminds me of the mural created by the Twin Peaks set decorating team for The Great Northern Hotel set. The original item was displayed at Frame of Mind Pictures in Glendale a few years ago.

“LAURA, TWIN PEAKS” BY OWEN SMITH

The Copro Gallery listed Smith’s piece as “Untitled” on their website for the exhibition. This framed oil-on-wood piece measures 20-inch by 16-inches and has a retail of $2,500.

The original framed piece is still available for sale on the Copro Gallery website which Smith later titled, “Laura, Twin Peaks.”

This is the framed image of Smith’s work from the Copro Gallery website.

This is how I found it when attending the opening night of the exhibit on April 21, 2012. At this time, his piece was listed as “Untitled.”

This closer shot from the Copro Gallery website show the rich colors and details.

I cropped the shot from my visit to the gallery which reminds me of what Bobby Briggs told Dr. Jacoby about Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks episode 1.005:

“She said that people tried to be good. But they were really sick and rotten on the inside, her most of all. And every time she tried to make the world a better place, something terrible came up inside her and pulled her back down into hell, and took her deeper and deeper into the blackest nightmare.”

I’m surprised Smith’s artwork is still for sale and I hope that a fellow Twin Peaks fan adds it to their collection.