Doylestown, Pennsylvania.- You’re strolling down a busy sidewalk, absorbed in your thoughts. Suddenly someone walking the other way glances in your direction, you glance back, and your reverie is broken. Two souls meet, briefly, then the moment passes, and without breaking stride you each walk on. The paintings of Mavis Smith are about that moment, hinting at a narrative, yet remaining intentionally elusive. “Mavis Smith: Hidden Realities” will be on view at the James A. Michener Art Museum from January 14th through May 20th 2012 in the Fred Beans Gallery. Part storyteller, part portraitist and part stage director; the Bucks County resident and Trenton native creates images like single frames of a movie with no beginning and no end. Who are these mysterious figures, gazing at the world with enigmatic calm, surrounded by swimming pools, moody interiors and distant skies, portals to another world?