About

Leah Smith is a visual artist thinking about deep time, embodied thought, and our place in the natural world through a creative practice encompassing drawing, sculpture, and fiber arts. After growing up in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains near Denver, Colorado, she fell in love with exploring the green, worn-down hills of Appalachia during her college years, and now lives and works in western North Carolina. She earned her BA in Studio Art from Davidson College in 2013, where she was the recipient of the McAllen Scholarship for Studio Art. Her work has been exhibited nationally, and she has held residencies at the Hambidge Center (GA) and I-Park (CT). 

Artist Statement

My artistic practice centers modes of creating in which complexity arises out of the aggregation of simple, cyclical actions, such as carving, stitching, weaving, or mark-making in patterns. I am captivated by the notion that nature’s grandest designs arise in much the same way, through incremental, mundane processes. When I use elemental materials and processes in my work, I feel simultaneously connected to the creative spirit that makes us all human, and the creative force of nature itself. I experience a shift in the passing of time, an untethering from intention. Balancing structured, intentional design against intuitive, spontaneous form never fails to surprise me and raise new questions that drive the next iteration. My goal is to cultivate a perspective that is simultaneously grounded in deep time, and in the body in the here and now. I think this perspective is essential to surviving, maybe even thriving, in the contemporary polycrisis in which we find ourselves.