Brian Smith MFA'20 is a Portland, Maine–based artist working across sculpture, painting, and drawing. Rooted in queer ecological theory, his practice reimagines human relationships to the natural world by proposing optimistic, speculative futures in which humanity adapts and migrates (back) to the oceans in response to climate catastrophe. Smith’s work blends myth and material, often incorporating camp, exuberance, and layered textures, such as beads, chains, and mosaics, to explore hybrid identities and celebrate queerness as a mode of transformation and survival.
Smith holds an MFA from Maine College of Art & Design and a BFA in Sculpture from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. His work has been exhibited throughout New England, as well as in Antwerp and Austin, and is held in the permanent collection of the Portland Museum of Art, where he is currently featured in a group exhibition. His work has been written about in publications including Boston Art Review and The Portland Press Herald.
He is a recent Fellow at the Lunder Institute for American Art and has completed residencies at Monson Arts and Hewnoaks. He is a recipient of the Innovative Artist Grant, American Rescue Plan Maine Project Grant via SPACE Gallery, and Maine Arts Commission Project Grant.
Visiting Artist lectures are free and open to the public on a space-available basis.