Background
Smith grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, in metropolitan Washington, District of Columbia
Smith grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, in metropolitan Washington, District of Columbia
Yale University; Maryland Institute College of
and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine s degree in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of (MICA) in Baltimore, Maryland in 2007. He obtained a Master of Fine s (Master of Fine Arts) degree in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut in 2009.
He currently lives and works in Madison, Wisconsin. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Drawing and Painting at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. Leslie Smith III is an oil painter best known for his abstractions painted on shaped canvases.
He engages in an expressionist-based practice, activating his canvases with bold color, gestural brushstrokes, and narratives that insinuate discord.
Inspired by personal narrative and day-to-day interpersonal relationships, his paintings concentrate on employing abstraction to communicate the poetics of the human experience. Smith has exhibited at many museums including the Madison Museum of Contemporary (MMoCA) in Madison, Wisconsin.
The Wriston Galleries, Lawrence University, in Appleton, Wisconsin. The Milwaukee Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Contemporary s Museum Houston in Houston, Texas.
The Yale School of. The Gormley gallery of Notre Dame of Maryland University. And the Baltimore Museum of in Baltimore, Maryland, among others
He is the recipient of many awards, including an American Academy in Rome summer fellowship and an First Rate (at Lloyd's) Held Affiliate Residency Fellowship in Rome, Italy in 2009.
He is represented by Guido Maus, beta pictoris gallery / Maus Contemporary in Birmingham, Alabama.