Michael Smith

Michael Smith (b. 1984) developed a unique personal style in his teens that recalled fashion design and illustration from different eras. Created with color pencils , his signature compositions were orderly depictions of fancy dresses, elaborate ladies’ hats, and stylized, doll-like faces. 1970’s men’s fashion is also a favorite.

Smith has been inspired by the Ebony fashion editorials since being a child. As Smith matured, his fashion-oriented drawings became more abstract. Figures once clearly defined began to blur under clouds of large sweeping marks, their features and limbs barely suggested.

Currently he is taking on a more direct approach, utalizing more of the fashion editorials as jumping off points to express his vision. His drawings question the function of contemporary visual culture and how images, representations, and ideas normally function. Michael exhibited work in Teen Retreat, part of an installation in John Hugh’s Lake Forest Home in 2015. He also exhibited a number of works at the New York Outsider Art Fair in 2020.