Kiki Smith Research Paper

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Kiki Smith
Kiki Smith is an American artist who was born on January 18th, 1954 in Nuremberg, Germany. Her father, Tony Smith, was a minimalist sculptor and her mother, Jane Lawrence, was a popular American actress and opera singer.
Growing up, Kiki was always interested in art. Starting at a very young age, she worked alongside her father to help him create his sculptures. As she grew up, she was very unsure what she wanted to do with her life. Kiki later stated in an interview, “I became an artist because I didn’t know what to do and I thought it was really fun to make things.” With that being said, Kiki enrolled in Hartford Art School in 1974 in West Hartford, Connecticut. However, she dropped out eighteen months later and moved to New York in 1976. Kiki’s time at Hartford was the only art school she ever attended in her life. Soon after dropping out, she became part of Collaborative Projects Inc. She worked with a handful of other artists to put together venues of various art forms in places you wouldn’t normally expect to find an art venue. …show more content…

Kiki once again did not finish her schooling. However, the time she spent in medical school influenced her majorly. Many of Kiki’s artworks are extremely anatomically correct. This is all due to her knowledge of the human body. It’s even been said that some of her sculptures could be used as medical school anatomical models.
Kiki had her first successful showing at the Kitchen Gallery in 1982. On display was her sculpted female figures, many of which appeared to look unfinished, deformed, or disfigured. She designed many of her figures to have no skin or strange body parts. She had a very unique imagination.
Kiki was very much influenced by Catholicism. She created sculptures of female figures without skin and deformed bodies. Kiki

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