About Elizabeth Paige Smith

From the time Elizabeth was a child in the Cayman Islands, she gravitated to the ocean from an early age. As a place of sanctuary and ritual, she observed the way light moves, bends, and refracts in water. This attention to the influence of light and color has played a strong role in her work since her childhood days when she built coral reef hills at the bottom of the Caribbean sea.

Elizabeth Paige Smith is a multidisciplinary artist who breaks free of formality. Following her intuition, she explores contrasting methodologies to convey the experience, magnitude and rawness of our most primal emotions. Smith’s approach to making works is reductionist in approach and kaleidoscopic of sensory.

Based on personal experiences and told through various disciplines, whether they be short films, sculptures or sound works, Smith's works speak to each other through intricate connections and with profound raw emotions, echoing influences of human interaction and relationships. The invisible forces of environment and deep energy are often expressed with a visually textural story and color palette. The works are multifarious in that an emotional entanglement and vulnerable state of being are boldly expressed. Smith’s sculptural portrayals of emboldened feminine gestures often push the boundary of material tolerance with a combination of manner and materiality that is uniquely her own.

With a BFA degree from the University of Kansas, School of Fine Arts, Elizabeth found her way to Los Angeles as a young woman, moving between the ocean and mountains. She soon found herself designing furniture, leading her to commissioned works for private collectors and creatives like Gwyneth Paltrow, Patricia Arquette, Kirstin Dunst, Ellen Degeneres and Kanye West.

Her designs are not just objects for a room, but a coveted art form. Smith was included in “Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity, 1900-2000" exhibition at LACMA, handpicked as one of three designers alongside Sam Maloof and Frank Ghery. From the early 2000's Elizabeth's work was curated as part of exhibitions at the A+D Museum, Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, San Jose Museum of Contemporary Art, Pasadena Museum of Contemporary Art's California Design Biennial, among others. Elizabeth and her work were part of the exhibition "New Cultural Icons", featuring her sculptural and furniture work at the temporary contemporary museum hosted by Gen Art. Visa, Corp. celebrated Elizabeth for her unique work with a billboard feature in NYC. Smith was invited and featured in Surface Magazine's T.A.G. (Ten Avant Garde) designers and exhibited in shows in Milan, Tokyo, San Francisco and New York. From 2006-2009 she opened her atelier in Venice, CA, which quickly became a popular vortex for creative happenings attracting collabs with Paper Magazine and Roxy/Quicksilver. In 2009, Elizabeth decided to close the atelier and sought seclusion from Los Angeles giving focus to managing commissions and to the development of her new multi-disciplinary practice.

After almost a decade living in seclusion in Northern California, Smith returns to LA with a momentous transformation of herself and her work.

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