arvie smith

Arvie Smith is a nationally recognized artist who reflects on the complexities of the history of racial and social injustices committed toward African Americans. His work aims to debunk negative stereotypes and act as a dialogue about the inequality and marginalization of Black people in America.

Smith is known for his striking figurative, expressionist style, with a palette dominated by bright reds, orange-yellows, browns, and blacks, colors that remind him of his grandmother’s quits. Filling large, ambitious canvases with figurative compositions, glowing colors, and flowing brushstrokes that reveal a baroque sensibility. Smith’s work is deeply influenced by his childhood in the Jim Crow South, covering subjects such as African ancestry, slavery, the KKK, interracial relationships, and stereotypes like Aunt Jemima.

Smith earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR, in 1985. In 1992, he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Hoffberger School of Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD, where he also worked as a teaching assistant for Grace Hartigan, an abstract expressionist painter. He received an honorary doctorate from PNCA in 2018, and in 2022, he was included in a group exhibition of African American artists at the Venice Biennale in Italy.

His work can be found in the public and private collections such as the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, the Portland Art Museum, Oregon State University, the University of Maryland Global Campus, the Delaware Museum of Art, the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art, the Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, and the Nelson Mandela Estate.