Josh Smith

Josh Smith is an American contemporary artist born in 1976 in Okinawa, Japan, and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. Renowned for his multidisciplinary practice, Smith works across painting, printmaking, collage, sculpture, and ceramics. He first garnered attention in the early 2000s with his audacious “name paintings,” in which the letters of his own name became both subject and composition.

These self-referential canvases confront traditions of authorship and abstraction, blending gestural brushwork with a conceptual edge. As his career progressed, Smith diversified his imagery to include palm trees, grim reapers, skeletons, and abstract forms, always characterized by energetic marks and a raw aesthetic. Smith’s prolific output embraces experimentation and spontaneity, challenging notions of originality while referencing the history of painting.

He has exhibited internationally at prominent institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, and Museum Brandhorst in Munich, and his works feature in major collections worldwide. Josh Smith currently lives and works in New York City.