Heather Kai Smith is a Canadian visual artist and educator currently living between Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, BC and Chicago, IL. She completed her BFA in drawing from Alberta University of the Arts (2009) and her MFA at Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2017). Her practice explores the potential embedded within archival images of protest, collectivity and intentional communities activated through drawing, observation and iteration. Her work has lent itself to projects in animation, printmaking and installation with an emphasis on collaboration.

Smith has attended residencies across Canada, the United States, and Germany, while exhibiting her work within a variety of institutional and non-conventional spaces. Smith currently teaches in the College at The University of Chicago as Collegiate Assistant Professor. Recent independent and collaborative work has been shown at: The Reva and David Logan Center Gallery (Chicago), The Vancouver Art Gallery, Tallinn Art Hall (Estonia), The Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff), studio e gallery (Seattle), and The Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery (Vancouver).

She is also the founder of Great Women Animators: a database which documents the history of women in animation from the 1800s-now.

To get in touch, please e-mail: heatherkai.smith(at)gmail.com