Santa Fe Art Institute

Dianne Smith

Dianne Smith is a multidisciplinary artist whose career began over twenty years ago as an abstract painter. Her practice has expanded to include sculpture, installation, performance, costume and set design, curation, and socially engaged art. Smith’s social practice work centers on community dialogue, cultural memory, and collective making. She often collaborates with local communities to create public art projects that highlight shared histories and celebrate resilience, with a focus on Harlem and other historically rich neighborhoods. Her projects emphasize process and participation, creating space for healing, joy, and reflection. Her group and solo exhibitions include When the Tropics Are Quiet at Garner Arts Center, Two Turntables and a Microphone at The Bronx Museum, and Visions for Our Future: Echoes of Our Past at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design. She has also exhibited in The Way We Remember and the Uptown Triennial at the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University, as well as Re:Harlem at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Smith’s work in performance and theater includes costume design for The Vicksburg Project at Mabou Mines and I Dream a Dream That Dreams Back at Me: A Juneteenth Celebration at Lincoln Center, as well as set design for A Walk Into Slavery at the Billie Holiday Theatre. She also served as co-curator, costume designer, and installation artist for Archer Aymes Lost and Found Retrospective: A Juneteenth Exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory. She is a recipient of the Nancy Graves Foundation Award and a Fulbright grant from the U.S. Consulate General in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Her work is included in the permanent collections of The National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Bronx Museum, The Brodsky Organization, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art. Her personal papers are housed in the Barnard College Library Archives and Special Collections. In addition to her studio and public art practice, Smith has held leadership and teaching roles. She served as Director of Public Engagement at the Allentown Art Museum and as an adjunct professor in the Department of Education at the City College of New York, where she contributed to the development of arts-based curriculum and programming. Born in the Bronx to Belizean parents, Smith brings a diasporic perspective to her work, honoring ancestral legacies and reclaiming cultural narratives. She received her Master of Fine Arts from the Transart Institute, in collaboration with the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom, completing the program in Berlin, Germany. She currently lives and works in Harlem, New York.