Erin Smith: Hard Copy

Curated by Zoe Cinel

On view November 29, 2025 - August 2, 2026

Reception & Artist Spotlight Tour: November 29, 1 - 3:30 PM

Rochester Art Center presents Hard Copy, a solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Erin Smith. For the past few years, Smith’s practice has largely existed at the intersection of digital and physical media, a space she explores mainly through the lens of ceramics. Smith is interested in the transformation objects undergo when translated from the physical to digital, and vice versa. 

In Hard Copy she explores this transformation through her fascination for and her practice of collecting rocks. As the artist writes: “At the core of my work are rocks and minerals—materials with a geological timeline that predates human history. These natural forms, shaped by millennia, serve as both inspiration and raw material.” Attracted by their memory, form, and inclusions, Smith has collected stones for years. “Now, I assess them differently—considering their spatial presence, angles, and potential as digital scans.” This multilayered way of looking at simple objects is mirrored in her process: first she scans rocks using photogrammetry or other digital scanning processes, then she brings them into CAD environments to later reinterpret them using 3D printing in clay and plastic. From that, she creates molds that allow her to reproduce multiples and experiment with decoration. 

This repetitive and laborious process challenges assumptions about digital production, often perceived as immediate and opposite from the slow transformations we can witness in nature. In Smith’s words: “Each transformation leaves a trace—a loss of fidelity that becomes part of the object’s new identity. These works hold a dual history: geological and digital. Rather than designing forms from scratch, I’m drawn to the irregularities and subtleties that nature has already carved. Some prints are covered in optical patterns that visually flatten the form, referencing the flatness of working on a screen. Others are repeated, echoing early 2-bit video game graphics—an easy task in software, but painstaking to replicate by hand through casting.” To reinforce this connection with place and time, and to ground this digital-to-physical loop back into the material world, artworks will be displayed on mosaic stone bases, nodding to the Midwestern grotto folk art tradition that inspires Smith and connects her work to her Midwestern roots.

About the Artist

Erin Smith (b. 1980, St. Paul, MN) is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in product design and ceramics. Smith holds an MFA in Ceramics from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University (2021) and a BFA in Product Design from Parsons School of Design (2003). 

Her work has been exhibited widely, including at NADA Miami, Felix Art Fair (LA), Maytens Gallery (Toronto, Canada) and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, where she was a 2023 Arts/Industry resident. She has received support from the McKnight Foundation, the Metro Regional Arts Council, and her work is held in the collections of the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum and the John Michael Kohler Art Center.