BIO

 

Lynne Smith is a post-disciplinary / post-medium artist, designer, and educator. Through sustained attention to landscape, Smith researches and responds to the circumference and specificity of sites. Using provisional strategies and material poetics, narratives unfold and are retold through weavings, archives, sculptures, installations, and public works. Her current project at the National Building Arts Center, commissioned by Counterpublic, transforms a loading dock into a aquatic oasis featuring the American lotus. This site-within-a-site offers a counterpoint to the surrounding industrial occupation and history of contamination in Sauget, IL (original headquarters of Monsanto) and demonstrates climate resilience for planetary and public health.​

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Multi-sensory research and relational activity are central to Smith’s practices, in which materials serve as conduits for embodiment, connection, and knowledge. Smith teaches in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, facilitates workshops for the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum and other community-based non-profits, and develops independent educational programming.

Smith received grants from the IMSE Lab at WashU, the Luminary Futures Fund, a regranting initiative of the Andy Warhol Foundation, and the Regional Arts Council. She will contribute to NBAC's upcoming Preservation Station 777  exhibition supported by the Graham Foundation, and is one of 47 artists in Coyote Time Counterpublic’s 2026 triennial (through December).