Bayeté Ross Smith is an artist, photographer, and arts educator. Previously based in San Francisco, the artist currently resides in New York City.
Ross Smiths work has been exhibited nationally and internationally by the San Francisco Arts Commission, Oakland Museum of California, Rush Arts Gallery, Leica Gallery, MoMA P.S.1, Duetsche Bank, Goethe Institute (Ghana), and Zacheta National Gallery of Art (Poland). His collaborative film with the Cause Collective screened at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Ross Smiths accolades include fellowships and residencies with the Laundromat Project, Brooklyn, New York, McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, the Kala Institute, Berkeley, California, and Can Serrat Art Center, Barcelona, Spain.
Ross Smith began his career as a photojournalist for Knight Ridder Newspaper Corporation in the 1990's. His photographs have been published in numerous books and magazines, including Dis:Integration: The Splintering of Black America (2010), Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present (2009), Black: A Celebration of A Culture (2005), The Spirit Of Family (2002); SPE Exposure: The Society of Photographic Education Journal, Black Enterprise, Working Mother Magazine, and the various publications of Village Voice Media.
As an educator, Ross Smith has taught college students, and mentored youth through community based art projects. He has worked with the International Center of Photography, California College of the Arts, and numerous K-12 and college level courses throughout the California Bay Area, and New York City.