Emily Mae Smith

Emily Mae Smith makes lively and humorous paintings that are full of allusions to art historical movements like Symbolism, Surrealism and Pop-art. Underneath this visual wit, Smith addresses timely and relevant topics like gender, sexuality, capitalism and violence, thereby making her paintings multi-layered. One of the recurring characters in her work is a broomstick figure that she started using because it allows her to paint a domestic tool associated with women’s labour, a painter’s brush and a phallus symbol at the same time. This figure continuously evolves throughout her oeuvre and takes on a broad variety of forms and guises.
— LVB

Recent solo exhibitions include The Pond Society, Shanghai, China; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah; Marion Art Gallery, Rockefeller Arts Center, SUNY Fredonia; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford; Le Consortium Museum, Dijon; SALTS (with Adam Henry), Basel.

Select group exhibitions include: The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles; 58th October Salon, Belgrade Biennale, Belgrade; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus; Arsenal Contemporary, New York; Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland; Public Art Fund, New York.

Smith’s work is included in collections such as Arsenal Contemporary, Montreal; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin; The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus; The Consortium Museum, Dijon; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum Brandhorst, Munich; Powerlong Art Museum, Shanghai; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga.