Rachel Suzanne Smith

• Audio description of a wearable sculpture by Rachel Suzanne Smith.

  
  

  Audio description of a wearable sculpture by Rachel Suzanne Smith, an artist-in-residence at Acadia in 2021.

  Date created:

  08/21/2023

  Audio Transcript

  This installation is presented inside a large display case with a maple base and a clear acrylic cover.

  Centered on the base pedestal is a human bust figure to hold the finished artwork. The bust consists of two intersecting profiles cut from sheets of laminated structural material. Viewed from the front, the outline of the shapes suggests a neck, shoulders and waist. Viewed from the side, the intersecting shapes suggest the contours of a person’s neck, chest and back. The surface of this structure, which seems to have a pale, watery green finish, has been laser-etched with images of moss, lichen, barnacles, and seaweed.

  The artwork itself is an intricate and expansive wearable metal sculpture. It is intended to balance on a person’s shoulders and chest and surround them within an embrace of plant branches and leaves growing up and outward from a large central opening for the head. There are no visible welds or fasteners for the dozens of delicately cut and bent sections of polished and painted sheet metal. Darker portions closest to the neck appear to have a brown mat finish. Then blended greens transition to almost fluorescent glossy green, orange and yellow traces representing fresh growth along the very tips of many outermost leaves.

Photo courtesy of Rachel Suzanne Smith

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Photos courtesy of Rachel Suzanne Smith

Rachel Suzanne Smith is an artist, metalsmith, and educator. She makes art, works as Fabrication Lab Supervisor at Oberlin College, and teaches part time at Kent State University. She received her undergraduate degree at Miami University in Art Education with minors in 3D Media Studies (jewelry/metals) and Spanish. She received her MFA in Crafts (Jewelry Metals Enameling) at Kent State University.

Rachel Suzanne Smith’s work reflects themes of identity and ornament, focusing on the biophilia hypothesis and the human desire to connect with the outdoors and nature. The facilitation of that need occurs through the use of adornment, allowing the wearer to surround themselves in arrangements and clusters of plants, created via the artist’s photographs and sketches.

Rachel Suzanne Smith’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She was a finalist in the 2017 Friedrich Becker Prize and exhibited the work in the Finalist Exhibitions in the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf and the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau. She was a 2016 Niche Award winner in the category of Sculpture to Wear. Also active in the Ohio art scene, Rachel has received the Fresh Air award at the Akron Summit Art Space, the award for Excellence in Metals at the Ohio Craft Museum “Best of” exhibition, and is a 2019 recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award.

Visit her website at rachelsuzannesmith.com

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