Bio
Leslie Smith is a printmaker and book artist whose research-based work explores material histories, archives, and the natural world. She holds an MFA in Book Arts from the University of Iowa Center for the Book, an MLS in Library Science, and an MA in Spanish and Latin American Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Smith has participated in artist residencies at Penland School of Crafts, Art Print Residence Barcelona, the Folger Shakespeare Library, Radford University, and the University of Wisconsin–Parkside. Her books and prints are held in public and private collections, including the UCLA Biomedical Library, Flaxman Library at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Smithsonian Libraries. She lives and teaches in North Carolina.
Artist's Statement
My practice often begins with historical primary sources, which ground me in familiar narratives and reveal how the stories we tell shape our understanding of the world. Recently I have been drawn to agricultural soil maps, herbarium plant specimens, and rare scientific texts concerning plants and geologic time. These materials offer ways of thinking across temporal scales far beyond human experience. Working with them, I propose alternative accounts that invite us to reconsider our place within the living world. My artwork reinterprets the layered evidence of the natural world, inviting the viewer to consider how reading the earth helps us imagine new relationships with the environments we inhabit.