Ali Smith is a painter who lives and works in Long Beach, California. Born in 1976, Smith was raised in Whittier by a math professor dad and homemaker mom, and headed to upstate New York for college, where she received a B.S. in Studio Art from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York in 1998, minoring in Art History and French. She spent her junior year abroad in Paris, France, which had an enormous impact on her art and life. After college, Smith moved back to California, dragging her boyfriend, now husband, artist Noah Thomas along. She completed her graduate degree at California State University, Long Beach in 2003 and has actively exhibited her large-scale paintings since graduation.
Smith has been in numerous group and solo shows both in Los Angeles and internationally, including exhibitions in Tokyo, Amsterdam and an upcoming show at Galerie Brunnhofer in Austria, as well as inclusion in Pulse Miami in 2006 and Pulse New York 2007. Smith debuted at Mark Moore Gallery last summer in the group show, "Ultrasonic International 1," where Leah Ollman wrote in the Los Angeles Times that Smith's paintings are "quirky and gunky." She has also been reviewed in the OC Weekly,  NYArts and Artweek, where David DiMichele declared that Smith's paintings are "some of the few in recent memory to remain captiviating while avoiding abstraction's biggest pitfall--decoration." Drawing on her experience living in France, Smith has taught French as well as studio art  and freshman writing at the university level, and is currently the gallery director of Greenleaf Gallery at Whittier College. Her work has been acquired by the Progressive Insurance Collection, the Chaney Collection in Texas and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation.

Ali Smith will have her first solo show at Mark Moore Gallery in May 2007 as well as solo shows at Finesilver Gallery in Houston, and DNA Galerie Berlin in December 2007. Smith is represented by Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica, CA.

   © 2004-2005 Ali Smith