Jessica Bosworth Smith (b. 1989) is an artist working in painting, ceramics, and interventions with found objects. Her work invites close inspection, revealing unexpected and playful details that create layered dialogues between the artist’s imagination and the viewer’s interpretation.

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Bosworth Smith plays with the spectacle of fabulous, almost unimaginable wealth and the privileges it affords. Her paintings offer a way to access these rarefied worlds—spaces she (and perhaps the viewer) might never inhabit except through imagination, research, and brushwork. Her scenes reflect a persistent fascination with space and social status, both real and imagined.

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She renders seemingly familiar environments through a maximalist lens, rich with pattern, texture, and meticulous detail. Titling plays a central role in her practice, often adding a layer of pseudo-polite or ironic ambiguity that invites the viewer to reconsider what they’re seeing—and how they’re seeing it.

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Bosworth Smith received her BFA from Rhodes University and her Honours in Visual Studies (Illustration), cum laude, from the University of Stellenbosch. She was named one of the Design Indaba Emerging Creatives in 2017 and was selected for the Top 100 in the ABSA L’Atelier in both 2017 and 2018. She has participated in international residencies including Comic Blast at the Arteles Creative Center in Finland (2018) and Casa Figueira at São João Farm in Brazil (2023). She has published two books through Imagnary House and currently exhibits with 131 A Gallery in Cape Town, South Africa.