Shawn Smith was born in 1972 in Dallas, TX. He received his BFA in Printmaking from Washington University in St. Louis, MO in 1995 and his MFA in Sculpture from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco in 2005. He has received artist-in-residencies from the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA and the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, France. Smith’s work has been exhibited at Hå Gamle Prestegard, National Art and Culture Center of Norway, and throughout the U.S. including the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery, Nasher Sculpture Center, Austin Museum of Art, Galveston Art Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Oakland Arts Museum, Berkeley Art Center, Richmond Art Center, di Rosa Art and Nature Preserve, Dean Lesher Center for the Arts, Holter Museum of Art, Lawndale Art Center, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Wichita Falls Museum of Art, the Armory Art Center, Scion Installation Center, the Grace Museum and the McKinney Avenue Contemporary, among others.