Past Exhibitions
2025 Keene Arts, Annual Group Show, Keene, NY (August)
2025 Berkshire Arts Festival, Great Barrington, MA (July)
2025 Paradise City Arts Festival, Northampton, MA (May)
2024 Paradise City Arts Festival, Malborough, MA (November)
2024 Paradise City Arts Festival, Northampton, MA (October)
2024 Paradise City Arts Festival, Northampton, MA (May)
2024 Solo Show, Rockridge Retirement Community, Northampton, MA
2023 Solo Show, Hadley Senior Center, Hadley, MA
2023 Solo Show, Breman Library, Breman, ME
2017 Solo Show, Harolds, Houston, TX https://www.haroldsheights.com
2011 Dia de Los Muertos Retablo Exhibition, Lawndale Art, Houston, TX
2007 Group Show at Bering & James Gallery Houston, TX
2006 Solo Show, Over the Years, Rockridge, Northampton, MA
2005 Solo Show, New Work, 212 Main Street, Northampton, MA
2002 Solo Show, Greece, 212 Main Street, Northampton, MA
2001 Solo Show, New Work, Hair East, Amherst, MA
1999 Solo Show, Sandblasted glass, Watervine Center, Northampton, MA
1999 Group show, Little Books, Sullivan Square, Northampton, MA
1998 Solo Show, From the Dark, Arts and Industries Building, Florence, MA
1997 Solo Show, Cutting Open, Center Street, Northampton, MA
1996 Solo Show, New Work, Center Street, Northampton, MA
1996 Solo Show, House, Center Street, Northampton, MA
1995 Solo Show, I Got Red Hot Hands, Center Street, Northampton, MA
1995 Solo show, Jo Smith, La Veracruzana, Northampton, MA
1995 Solo show, Jo Smith, Bela, Northampton, MA
1994 Solo show, Jo Smith, Changes, Northampton, MA
1994 Group show, Cheshire Academy, Cheshire, CT
1993 Group show, Bohemia Gallery, New Haven, CT
Permanent Installations/Murals
Community Legal Aid, Northampton, MA (2024)
Kids Sport, Hadley, MA (1997)
Loose Goose Cafe, Amherst, MA (1996)
Teaching Experience
Art Teacher, Kents Hill School, Kents Hill, ME,1992-1993.
Art Teacher, Cheshire Academy, Cheshire, CT 1993-1994.
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, March 2000. Book Making as a Tool for Telling Your Story (con't. ed. Dept.)
Springfield College, Spring Semester, 2001. Ethics and Aesthetics in Art and Art Therapy
Bio
Jo Smith is a painter from Western Mass. She is known for her bright colors, sense of whimsy and a depth that is profound. This curious combination can be understood when you learn about Jo.
Jo studied art in college and lived off-campus twice, once in NYC with 2 artists, (Elaine Reicheck and Niki Berg) and once in Kenya with the school for international training. “My focus in Kenya was on a cross-cultural analysis of art through field work with the Pokot tribe and in Kisii, at a soap stone quarry. I became deeply interested in undeveloped and unschooled forms of art as well as the universal need for art and self-expression. I started to think deeply about my time in NYC and my time in rural Africa”. It was the juxtaposition of “high art” and the universal human need for expression that dominated Jo’s mind. She was heavily influenced by artists like Joan Miro whose playful forms and bright colors crossed the cultural barriers and talked about such dualities and contradictions. These themes are still part of her work today. “I am constantly being pulled between making “good art” and just allowing myself to paint intuitively and focus on self-expression and our human experience”.
After college Jo started teaching art. In 1994 she moved to Western Mass to paint full time. In 1995 she went to graduate school for Art therapy as she became interested in the unconscious mind and its contribution to art making. She continued to focus on understanding that there is a deep drive within all of us to be creative and that this drive is ancient and crosses all cultures but she also started to believe that art making is essential and healing.
Even as Jo became an Art Therapist and worked with clients in psychiatric settings she was painting. “I have always had a studio of my own, it is essential. I am constantly in conversations about one’s relationship to self, other and the community. It is the intersection of the human condition and the creative drive that fuels my own creative process.”
Jo currently works and paints at Jo Smith Studio Gallery located at 9 market street in Northampton, MA. Her gallery is open to the public the 2nd Friday of the month (during Northampton Arts Night Out) or by appointment. “Being open on Northampton Arts Night Out gives me the opportunity to interact with our local community and have these conversations with the public.”
