Cheri Smith (b. 1991, Essex) currently lives and works in London. Cheri’s works explore themes of animality, embodiment, wildness and strangeness, and are informed by her own detailed observations and imagination. She paints with oil, egg tempera or glue distemper onto supports such as canvas, panel and bookcover. Her works intend to illuminate the inherent unknowability of the natural world, and to ruminate on our contemporary place within it. Cheri completed her postgraduate in drawing from the Royal Drawing School in 2018, where she was awarded the Trustees Prize. She received her BA (Hons) in Fine Art from Norwich University of the Arts in 2013. She has been the recipient of residencies at Hanover Grange, Jamaica (2019), Borgo Pignano, Italy (2020), and Dumfries House, Scotland (2022). Her recent exhibitions include It is Better to be Cats than be Loved, Tabula Rasa Gallery (London, 2022); Bookworks, James Freeman Gallery (London, 2022) and Nine Lives, Fortnight Institute (New York, 2021).