Kiki Smith

American artist Kiki Smith has produced over the course of her career a multi-layered body of work exploring the sociopolitical, philosophical, and spiritual dimensions of human nature. Her investigations of the body, the female body in particular, propose discourses of the human condition. Her works address core themes from aging, death and dying, to wounding and healing, reanimation, pregnancy, birth, sexuality, gender, identity, and memory. While largely sculptural, Smith’s oeuvre employs a range of mediums, most notably drawing, etching, and lithography, as well as photography and video. Her early works were influenced by the sudden shifts in political, social, and cultural conditions—brought on in part by the AIDS epidemic, changing discourses on sexual identity and social gender, and the impacts of feminist activism. Since the early 1990s, Smith’s work has also incorporated themes referencing history, mythology, legends, fairy tales, and religious traditions. Nowadays, through an abundant use of materials (bronze, aluminum, glass,…) her works address human relationships to animals, nature, and the environment. Her pictorial interventions, her radicalism, and the magic of her materials not only make her work unique but continue to influence a younger generation of artists.