Colleen Francis Smith

Colleen Francis Smith (b. 1989) is an artist working predominantly in oil paint who draws from myth, oral tradition, and personal narrative to craft paintings of richly hued, psychological environments that question deeply embedded narratives of femininity. She holds an MFA in Painting from the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO, and received her BA in Studio Art and English Literature from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA. Smith has completed residencies through Chashama, The Woodstock-Byrdcliffe Artist’s Colony, and the Eastern Frontier Foundation. She is Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Lincoln University of Missouri and is currently based in Rocheport, Missouri.


Artist Statement

Within my paintings, wild and domestic spaces of growth are used as sites where feminine transformation, stagnation, and escape play out. Reality is suspended as the overgrown garden and forest become psychological playgrounds where figures may dissolve into plant life and the laws of physics can bend. Female figures interacting with the natural world—lush psychedelic backgrounds, encroaching plants, and figures in various states of transition—take on layered meaning within these intimate environments. Often, the figure is present and rendered in full; other times it is obscured, merged, or entirely absent—echoing how feminine agency historically shifts and manifests.

These dream-like spaces invite questions of how cultural and political expectations shape contemporary narratives of womanhood, shedding light on the deep incision these narratives have made on the collective body of the female psyche. The garden and forest become both sanctuary and battleground, cultivating fertile ground where new narratives can take root.


www.colleenfrancissmith.com