Philip Smith b. 1952

Philip Smith (b. 1952, Miami, Florida) is an American artist whose work brings together painting, drawing, photography, and found imagery. After receiving his BA from Clark University in 1976, he established his studio in New York, returning to Miami in 2018. In 1977, Smith was included in Pictures, the influential exhibition curated by Douglas Crimp at Artists Space, New York, alongside Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein, Sherrie Levine, and Robert Longo.

Photography has remained central to Smith’s practice. Drawing upon an extensive archive of 35mm negatives, he records diagrams, symbols, advertisements, and fragments of popular culture, translating them into layered pictorial fields. Maps, scientific models, numerology charts, early systems of notation, and the symbolic traditions of ancient cultures coexist with elements of personal memory. Rather than forming fixed narratives, these images operate through association.

Smith’s earlier paintings were built through layers of oil paint and wax, into which he drew, incised, erased, and repeatedly reworked his imagery. His recent works employ oil pastel on canvas, allowing signs, figures, numbers, and gestural marks to emerge with greater immediacy. Across these changing processes, Smith has remained concerned with the ability of images to communicate beyond language.

In 2025, the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami presented Philip Smith: Magnetic Fields, a career survey bringing together more than fifty works spanning five decades. Smith has participated in the Whitney and Beijing Biennials, and his work is held in collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Moderna Museet, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Dallas Museum of Art, and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.