JOSH SMITH

As Annabel Downs writes in Ocula Magazine, ‘Smith’s paintings are not about the image itself but the act of painting, the repetition, and the possibility of failure. He challenges the viewer to find meaning in the process, rather than the product.’ Over more than two decades, Smith has become a defining figure in international contemporary art, with his works held in major museum collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Early Years

Born in Okinawa, Japan, in 1976, Josh Smith grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, after his family relocated due to his father’s military service. He studied at Miami University, Ohio, before earning his BFA from the University of Tennessee in 1998. Smith moved to New York that year, where he continues to live and work. His early training as a printmaker and years spent as Christopher Wool‘s assistant—‘I love Christopher and learned a lot from him about his contemporaries like Franz West, Martin Kippenberger, Albert Oehlen, and Dieter Roth’—deeply informed his approach to painting and the importance of risk and experimentation in art.

Josh Smith Artworks

Smith’s contemporary art is defined by serial repetition, bold colour, and a playful subversion of artistic conventions. He works in series, often focusing on a single motif rendered in ways that oscillate between abstraction and figuration. ‘I like art that shows exactly how it was made. Art that is not a mystery but just coalesces into an image. It’s not like Leonardo da Vinci or like magic. The only magical part is the miracle that all these things can work as a painting’, Smith told Annabel Downs in Ocula Magazine.

Name Paintings and Early Series

Smith’s breakthrough ‘name paintings’ used the letters of his own name as both subject and structure, exploring the expressive possibilities of abstraction, authorship, and repetition. By turning his name into a motif, Smith questioned ideas of originality and the mythology of the artist’s signature.

Iconic Motifs and Serial Imagery

Since the 2010s, Smith has developed series based on archetypal motifs—palm trees, fish, skeletons, sunsets, turtles, and the Grim Reaper—each rendered with a mix of aggression, humour, and painterly experimentation. His Grim Reaper paintings, for example, offer a modern take on the memento mori tradition, using repetition and vivid colour to transform a symbol of death into a vehicle for painterly invention. In 2024, Smith’s exhibition Studio News at Galerie Eva Presenhuber in Vienna featured paintings of bats: ’They’re like birds, but way cooler. But yes, I have noticed that my work has had quite a Halloween theme lately... I wanted it to look child-made so that viewers wouldn’t feel intimidated. They can bring their own self into looking at the work. I don’t was’.

Collage, Sculpture, and Expanded Practice

Beyond painting, Smith is an accomplished bookmaker, ceramicist, and sculptor, often combining handmade and found objects in mixed-media works that challenge the boundaries between original and copy. His artist’s books, prints, and collages further extend his investigation into process and seriality.

Studio News and Digital Practice

Smith’s Studio News is a lo-fi series on YouTube and Instagram, offering candid insights into his studio practice and artistic philosophy. ‘I was looking for a way to have more fun with what I do. After painting for so long, it’s nice to have something new to play with. It shows a side of myself that’s different from what people know’, Smith explains. The series reflects his commitment to transparency and the everyday realities of an artist’s life.

Select Public Commissions

• Public mural, Art Production Fund, New York
• Permanent works in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Broad, Los Angeles

Select Awards and Accolades

• Works held in major public collections: The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Broad, Los Angeles; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; MUMOK, Vienna
• Featured in The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014–15)
• Included in the 54th Venice Biennale, ILLUMInations, Venice (2011)

Exhibitions

Josh Smith has been the subject of both solo exhibitions and group exhibitions at important institutions. Below is a selection of important exhibitions.

Solo Exhibitions

• Life Drawing, The Drawing Center, New York, 2024
• Studio News, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Vienna, 2024
• Keyhole, Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, 2022
• Spectre, David Zwirner, London, 2020
• Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, 2016
• Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome, 2015
• The American Dream, The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, 2011
• Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva, 2009
• Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK), Vienna, 2008

Group Exhibitions

• The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2014–15
• Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age, Museum Brandhorst, Munich, 2019–20
• The Generational: Younger Than Jesus, New Museum, New York, 2009
• ILLUMInations, Venice Biennale, Venice, 2011
• The Painting Factory: Abstraction after Warhol, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2012
• Le Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse, 2011

Josh Smith FAQs

Ocula | 2025