Matt Smith

b. 1971, Cambridgeshire, UK

Matt Smith is a multi award-winning artist based in Ireland and England. He is well known for his site-specific work in museums, galleries and historic houses. Using clay, textiles and their associated references, he explores how cultural organisations operate using techniques of institutional critique and artist intervention. Smith is interested in how history is a constantly selected and refined narrative that presents itself as a fixed and accurate account of the past and how, through taking objects and repurposing them in new situations, this can be brought to light. Of particular interest to him is how museums can be reframed into alternative perspectives.

Matt J Smith is best known for his work with museums and collections. He recontextualises museum collections to consider overlooked or erased narratives, often incorporating LGBTQ+ histories and legacies of colonisation. Solo exhibitions include Losing Venus at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Flux: Parian Unpacked at the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge (UK), Who Owns History at Hove Museum and Queering he Museum at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham Art Gallery (UK) and the Victoria and Albert Museum London (UK). Notable group shows have included Dublin Castle (Ireland), Gustavsberg Konsthall, Stockholm (Sweden) the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (Ireland) and the Foundling Museum (UK). In 2015/16 he was artist in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and in 2024/25 Artist in Residence at Holocaust Centre North. He holds a PhD from the University of Brighton, was Professor at Konstfack University, Stockholm and currently teaches at the Royal College of Art.

In 2020 he was awarded the Brookfield Prize at Collect and the Contemporary Art Society acquired a body of his work for Brighton Museum and Art Gallery. His work is also held in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Walker Art Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, National Museum of Scotland, National Museum of Northern Ireland and the Crafts Council collection.

Matt Smith is represented internationally by Cynthia Corbett Gallery and was the winner of the Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize in 2014.