Suzie Smith

Suzie Smith is a print-based artist who explores the deconstruction & transformation of objects & materials to inspire new meanings and interpretations. Smith’s process incorporates invented systems and structures to rebuild the physical elements of her investigations into multiple variations of abstracted design. Smith’s 2025 Smokestack Analog Print Residency project, Imagined Archives, represented her introduction to relief printmaking as a new method of approach within her practice.

Imagined Archives Artist Statement

Imagined Archives is a series of unique woodcut prints created from laser cut panels that fit together in different ways. Like building blocks or a game, this method offers endless compositional options. Using the vessel as a starting point for experimentation, the blocks fit together to evoke forms found in archeological museum displays, thrift store shelves, design catalogues, pottery classes and kitchen cupboards. Each individual panel allows for the constructed image to shift slightly altering the overall look of the vessel shape, its historical associations and how the viewer imagines it may have been used. Since each form is made up of a variety of panels the final work becomes a collage of different styles and references.

The work celebrates some of the inherent qualities of the printmaking process while also pushing against some of its common traits such as repetition and uniformity. Variation in inking of the different panels allows for the texture of the wood to show through and highlights the process of making the work. Using this open-ended structure, the process becomes generative, spontaneous and surprising.

Suzie Smith holds a BFA from Concordia University and an MFA from The Glasgow School of Art. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally in the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, and Scotland. Select solo-exhibitions include presentation at Atelier Circulaire, Montreal; Malaspina Printmakers, Vancouver; Open Studio, Toronto; and Ace Art, Winnipeg.