Joe Smith is an artist who has been working in sculpture for about 30 years. He graduated from The Rhode Island School of Design in 1980 with a degree in Sculpture. His work has been exhibited in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Gimignano and Siena (Italy), Schiedam (The Netherlands). Reviews of his work have appeared in Art Forum, Art in America, Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and other art publications. Currently teaching at Mount Holyoke College, Joe Smith lives and works in the Pioneer Valley, Massachusetts.
I am a materialist and I believe in the power of objects. But lately I have been thinking of my work as a way of constructing a space for meanings to occur. The particular meaning is unimportant to me. I am interested instead in the variety of meanings generated by my work. The sculpture I make may use domestic space, the space of wildness, illusionistic space, symbolic space, the space of a story or the space of remembrance and memory, or it may create a kind of space that makes me move differently when I approach it or move through it. The materials I use must exact a kinesthetic affect on me, through their intrinsic qualities and how I use them. That is, when I get it right, my sculpture does something. It produces an instability and attention is brought to bear. My work is active and destabilizing and possibly in that way it moves beyond me and my desires into the world.