Sun Smith-Forêt is a professional studio artist, teacher and independent curator. She completed an MFA in painting, drawing, design and printmaking at Washington University and studied art history, art and architecture as an undergraduate student. Since then, her artistic practice has encompassed textile construction, quilts, sculpture, and knotted and woven functional objects.
Rooted in ancient cultural practices, rituals and imagery, as well as in mathematics and science, Sun Smith Forêt’s most recent sculptural works reference vessels, nests, boats and celestial bodies. Smith-Forêt embeds these knotted objects with the knowledge of spiritual thought from a range of cultures, including Native American spiritual practices, African cosmology, Viking funerary rituals, Buddhist thought and aspects of Christianity, all with which she connects on a deeply personal level.
The artist is a student of world religions and art practices, weaving these ideas and aesthetics both literally and spiritually into her new works. A student of art history and art processes that included painting, drawing, printmaking and architecture, means that the works are layered with both personal and collective meaning.
— An excerpt from the essay “Sun Smith Foret: New Work in Amuletic Sculpture,” 2019, by Olivia Lahs-Gonzales.