Mariana Smith is an Associate Professor at Stockton University. She received a BFA in painting and folk art from Moscow College of Applied and Industrial Arts in Russia, BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design, MFA from the Cornell University.
She combines printmaking, miniature painting, and video installation to address the nature of immigrant dislocations and impacts of human presence in landscapes.
Exhibitions include the USA, Bulgaria, Taiwan, China, Italy, Ireland, UK, New Zealand, Guam, and Armenia, and the State of Ohio Governor’s Mansion. In 2023 Mariana Smith juried 9th International Triennial of Graphic Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria.

I work with the prints and drawings based on the California Redwoods and the NJ Pine Barrens impacted by forest fires. There burnt trees stand witness to the intensity of the climate shifts.
Printmaking medium provides the chaos and order where Gampi burns and the long etch veers on destruction; then printing and assemblage mends and honors these fragments. The unframed prints are vulnerable and reactive to the viewer’s presence.
The images of charred forests take on symbolic significance when the whole world seems to be burning and humanity while beholding it’s beauty, partakes in destruction, and mourns their losses.