Linda Smith is an artist and art educator based in New York City who started a non-profit while living in Kigali, Rwanda, called the “TEOH Project”, which provides cameras and art classes to children in Rwanda, Ghana, and Bronx NY. She has been commissioned by the UN to provide photographic classes to survivors and former perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. She earned her BA from Syracuse University and an MFA at the University of Connecticut. Her work has been exhibited in the United Nations, Embassies, and Universities including James Madison University in Virginia and the University of Cincinnati.
ARTIST STATEMENT
David & Rosemary Using video and photographic processes, Linda Smith examines relationships that develop over a period of time. While focusing on the communal and collaborative aspects of these projects, she considers the role she inhabits as a photographer and witness to the lives of others. David & Rosemary explores the relationship between Rosemary, who has been a caregiver for her disabled son, David, for almost four decades. The newest addition to this series has been the abstracted photos of David in the water. These images, which are taken during a time that is most freeing for both David and Rosemary, explore implications of latitude, mobility, and synthesis. Smith has been working on this series for twenty years.
Absence & Presence As Linda Smith's work continues to evolve, so does its meaning. Her imagery and sculptures occupy transitory spaces, that move through the ephemeral and the constant, desire and loss, the temporal and the eternal. Materiality and malleability are consistent themes that run throughout the ebbs and flow of her work.
