Studio portrait by Eleanor Arnold
Cheri Smith (b. 1991) lives and works in London. She completed her postgraduate in drawing at the Royal Drawing School (2018) and her BA in Fine Art from Norwich University of the Arts (2013). Her work has been exhibited internationally including with James Freeman Gallery (London), Fortnight Institute (New York) and Tabula Rasa (China), and her debut solo show Swallowing Figments will open at Fortnight Institute in March 2024.
Cheri’s works explore themes such as truth and fiction, animality and the weird. Her painted world is alive with animals, humans, plants and the elements, and imbued with an atmosphere of particularity and strangeness. Each scene is cultivated through a detailed observation of nature, and an imaginative transcribing of narrative elements mined from lived experience, dreams, literature and art history.