Rachel Wolfson Smith

In The Future Is Behind Us, Rachel Wolfson Smith focuses our attention on the essential and grounding effect of beauty in nature. In portraying constructed, intricate, and imagined landscapes, Smith creates an antidote to the imbalance many of us experience as we lurch from impulse to impulse in our tech-laden, consumer-driven, modern existence.

The scope of The Future Is Behind Us includes a series of floral cyanotypes that could be at home in the Victorian era, large scale graphite drawings alluding to the complexities of the modern self, and an imagined future where landscapes arrive in sci-fi-esque pre-packaged boxes.

It is in these historical and cultural influences that we observe history repeating itself, and better understand our relationship to natural beauty and the role it will undoubtedly play in the digital future. Smith invites us to pass through time, searching landscapes for beauty and finding guidance in eras past, present, and imagined.

About the Artist

Rachel Wolfson Smith is an American artist based in Austin, TX and Amsterdam, NL. Smith is known for large graphite drawings that use the landscape to interpret personal changes experienced over time. Interests in literature, psychology, and movement influence her work. She is an alumni of The Contemporary Austin’s Crit Group and artist residencies including 100W Corsicana Artist and Writer Residency and the Babyan Culture House. Her drawings are held in public and private collections, from Google to artist Kiki Smith. She has exhibited extensively, at institutions that include The Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, The Contemporary Jones Center, and Liliana Bloch Gallery. Her work has been discussed in publications including Design Milk, Sightlines, Art Maze Mag, Manifest’s International Drawing Annual, Drawing Discourse, Glasstire, and Iron & Air Magazine among others. Smith has been awarded support from The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, The Awesome Foundation, and the City of Austin. She received a BFA in painting from MICA and an MFA in painting from Indiana University.