Cauleen Smith

Cauleen Smith was born in Riverside, California, on September 25, 1967, and grew up in Sacramento. From 1988 to 1991, she attended the School of Creative Arts at San Francisco State University, where she earned her BA while completing the short films Wall Doc (1989) and Daily Rains (1990). From 1994 to 1998, Smith attended the School of Film, Theater, and Television at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she received her MFA. During that time, she began work on the feature Drylongso, which was completed in 1998. Since then, she has continued to produce short films and videos, live audiovisual performances, installations, and other creative works in various media. While living in Chicago and working as an artist in residence at Threewalls, she conceived the Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band Project, a performance-art piece that featured members of the Rich South High School Marching Band and the South Shore Drill Team. Smith’s work has been featured in solo shows and group exhibitions at New York City’s New Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Women & Their Work Gallery in Austin, Texas, among other institutions. She has received multiple awards, grants, residencies, and fellowships, including the Creative Capital grant, a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation residency, a Black Metropolis Research Consortium Research Fellowship, and the Director’s Grant at the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts. Smith currently lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the art department at UCLA.