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Next Big Thing: Jed Webster Smith

By Galerie editors
Artist standing in a studio with arms crossed, surrounded by various paintings and a large bear artwork on the wall.
Jed Webster Smith with Bear Baiting (2022), a monumental 88-by-52-inch watercolor mounted to canvas. Photo: Cheyenne Caraway

In his large-scale, hyperrealistic watercolors, Jed Webster Smith explores the history and mythology that shape the American West. Initially, his subjects seem familiar and are “cloaked in a veil of nostalgia,” says Smith, who grew up in Colorado and received a masters and a postgraduate fellowship at New York Academy of Art. But with attentive observation, stereotypical iconography like cowboys and horses reveals subtle references to “the distorted realities of the past,” says the Los Angeles–based artist, who uses his art to comment on topics such as westward expansion, colonialism, and man’s impact on the environment. 

Artist standing in art studio with large bear painting and various artwork on the walls, wearing a black shirt and jeans.
Jed Webster Smith with Bear Baiting (2022), a monumental 88-by-52-inch watercolor mounted to canvas. Photo: Cheyenne Caraway
Man in yellow shirt and wide-brim hat against a geometric landscape background.
Jed Smith, March 7th, (2021). Photo: Courtesy of the artist

Source of inspiration: To spark ideas, Smith reads historical nonfiction and sources documents such as old diaries and journals from eBay or The Strand bookstore in New York. 

Art gallery with paintings of a deer, person with fruit, large bear, and birds perched on poles on a wooden floor.
Installation of 2022 Fellows exhibition, New York, NY. Photo: Courtesy of the artist

“Jed’s work explores the myths of the American West in a new and contemporary way”

Eileen Guggenheim

Brown horse with a saddle in mid-jump, holding reins, and letters floating behind against a plain background.
Jed Smith, Lost Mail, (2021). Photo: Courtesy of the artist

Up next: Following a presentation of his artwork Bear Baiting at Art Basel in Miami Beach, he’ll be represented in a group show at Swivel Saugerties in upstate New York through January 27; plans for his first show at Gallery Poulsen in Copenhagen are also in the works. 

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2022 Winter Issue under the headline “Next Big Things.” Subscribe to the magazine.

Click here to see the full list of “Next Big Things.”