Dana Smith

Born in Staten Island, New York in 1959, and grew up in Denver, Colorado. Dana received her BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Photography/Painting, 1982. Moved to San Francisco in 1982. and received her MFA in painting from San Francisco Art Institute in Painting, 1991. Currently lives and maintains a studio and small press called Dana Dana Dana in San Francisco, California.

Dana Smith has always been deeply involved in the creation of both painting and multimedia/photography based work. The photographically based work evolved as a collage technique in the late eightie, created using magazines and scissors and paste. In 1992 Dana was introduced to the groundbreaking Photoshop software and she joined the digital revolution which so radically changed the art-making terrain for everyone. Using everything she already knew about photography and collage she studied Photoshop and other digitally based image making software including video, print and internet based art and began teaching digital artmaking at the college level.

The work that Dana Smith does in the photographic realm is often incorporated into a book format. Development of narrative with series of images and the inclusion of text and collage techniques is central to the ideas that Dana is pursuing with her limited edition, handmade books. In 2004 Dana Smith founded a fine arts digital press for the purpose of creating limited edition artwork called Dana Dana Dana, seen in its entirety online at www.danadanadana.com. Hand-made books have been the focus with an emphasis on working collaboratively with other artists. The books and print editions have traveled to fairs and exhibitions world wide, and are housed in libraries and private collections internationally. Another art making sector that Dana has inhabited is digital video. Dana has created many short videos, as well as working professionally on broadcast video projects.

Currently, in 2018, making paintings is allowing me an exciting freedom to expand my visual vocabulary. I find that painting is now the most versatile way to make images. Color and light become metaphorically representational of shifting emotional response, the river that sweeps us through life.

SELECTED COLLECTIONS
• Palace of the Legion of Honor, The Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, San Francisco, California
• Library of Congress, Washington DC
• The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
• Stanford University, Palo Alto, California
• Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California
• Harvard University Art Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• New York Public Library, New York, New York
• University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Florida Atlantic University, The Arthur and Mata Jaffe Center for Book Arts
• Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

San Francisco