Shawn Smith is an artist born in 1972 in Dallas, TX. He received a BFA in Printmaking from Washington University in 1995 and an MFA in Sculpture from the California College of the Arts in 2005. His work investigates the intersection of the digital world and reality, specifically how nature is experienced through technology. To create his sculptures, Shawn cuts material like plywood into varying length strips, dyes each strip individually with mixed inks and paints, and assembles the strips into forms resembling nature such as birds or spiders.

1. Shawn Smith
Shawn Smith was born in 1972 in Dallas, TX where he attended Arts Magnet High School and Brookhaven
College before graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, MO with a BFA in Printmaking in
1995. Shawn received his MFA in Sculpture from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2005. He
has received artist-in-residencies from the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA and the Cite Internationale des Arts
in Paris, France.
His work investigates the slippery intersection between the digital world and reality. Specifically, he is interested
in how we experience nature through technology. When we see images of nature on TV or on a computer
screen, we feel that we are seeing nature but we are really only seeing patterns of pixelated light.
Shawn starts with a full sheet of material like plywood or MDF and cut it into 1/2" strips of varying lengths-typically 1/2" to 2' long. He then hand dye each strip of wood individually with dyes mixed from ink and acrylic
paint. He mixes each colour by hand to create a huge palette of colours in order to give the sculpture more depth
and visual interest before assembling the object.
Birds
Spider