“As an artist I contribute my vision and response to social issues through narrative sculpture. My installations combine ceramic figures with photomontages composed within imagined spaces. The concepts for my work have ranged from human consciousness to nostalgia, and recently my concerns for environmental impacts to the food we consume.”
Nan Smith
in the studio
Nan Smith is a full-time studio artist who maintains her sculpture studio in Gainesville, Florida. Nan, a Professor Emerita, at the University of Florida’s School of Art + Art History presents workshops and demonstrations on figure sculpture and mold-making. Her work has been published and exhibited internationally.
Nan Smith’s new artwork is focused on heritage. This year, she has been working on a large still life picturing a domestic setting, dedicated to multiple generations of her family, then and now. This complex artwork combines sculpture and tableware. In it Nan explores new content but continues with the still life format used in the porcelain server sets, called “Thirsty Nests”.
current
New Collection Acquisition
Santa Fe College Foundation Art Collection donated by Hector Puig, Gainesville, Florida, Swimmer: Mercury Project and Coal Stacks: Mercury Project, archival photographic prints on Canson Photographique fine art paper, 44.847”(h) x 30.5”(w), (each), September, 2025. (See Photography Gallery for images)
Recent Exhibitions
- The Dreams of our Fathers: Environment, Technology & Urban Landscapes, Florida Atlantic University’s Ritter Art Gallery, Curated by Veronique Cote On View: January 18 – March 1, 2024
- The Power of Resilience and Hope – Photography and the Holocaust: Then & Now, CEPA
Gallery, Contemporary Photography & Visual Arts Center, Buffalo, New York, Curated by Robert Hirsch. On View: January 20 – May 31, 2024
My line of mugs are being sold at the RADIUS GALLERY.
You can also contact me directly if you are interested in acquiring one.
news
“As climate change increasingly elevates water, through extremes of scarcity and excess, to the status of destroyer of worlds, even subtle messages like those carried by the Thirsty Nest still lifes of American ceramist Nan Smith press with crystalline clarity the message that opportunity is not infinite.”
Glen R. Brown
recent project
The Mercury installation informs the public about environmental impacts to seafood and the need for conserving our oceans and seas. The Research | Mercury Art + Science page is intended as a resource about environmental mercury. Learn more about the development of the installation and the research that was conducted to support the art work on our Research | Mercury Art + Science page.
Narrated by Nan Smith,
Directed and Produced by Alan Saperstein
[ view a larger video on our Media page ]
“INVOKING THE KIND OF AGGRESSIVELY SYMBOLIC PROGRAM that one associates with 16th century fresco cycles and complex ensembles of allegorical statuary, Nan Smith’s Mercury seizes space and conjures within it a monumental disquisition in which every surface and form participates with ringing clarity.”
“Throughout her career, Smith has used the ability to mimic almost any surface or form to create trompe-loeil images. Her work has never been about simple illusionism, however. This is a device Smith uses to examine complex issues. Mercury continues this dynamic of deceptive simplicity.”
“Although Mercury relies on extensive research to show steps by which the damage is done, like Smith’s other works, it presents its message as an experience in which the orchestration of forms and interplay of invented symbols have an intrinsic aesthetic resonance.”