Joalida Smit was born in Cape Town. She is a former Clinical Psychologist and Pediatric Neuropsychologist. She worked for 20 years in the NHS where she ran a brain cancer survivorship service in London. She moved to Lake Forest in December 2019, just six weeks before the COVID-19 epidemic. She started painting as a way to cope with the isolation imposed by lock down resulting in her first solo exhibition at The Gallery in Lake Forest, Illinois in 2023. This sold out show marked the pivot from clinician to artist. Her large, oversized oil on canvas paintings captures the austerity of the natural world and contemplate existential themes of passing time, transformation and the inherent fragility of life.  

“When I started painting during COVID, I had not made any art for nearly 

20 years and the journey from psychologist to artist during a time of great uncertainty, coping with isolation, transition and loss of my former 

professional life has been a powerful one and testimony to the healing 

power of art. I bring all this to my work as artist and teacher”.