Robert W. Smart

Robert William Smart is an American artist who works with programmable lighting technologies. Primarily, his work consists of large-scale Public Art installations in metal and glass for various cities and universities. Smart has taught sculpture and drawing for various colleges and universities.

Career
While earning his Masters of Fine Arts in 1999 at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1999, Smart created an exhibition at the Boston Cyberarts Festival, which later became a permanent interactive computer installation entitled ''Time. This is located'' within the main lobby at the Boston University Photonics Center. The sculpture uses interactive photonics technologies, programmable LED light, and glass columns. The interactive photonics technology senses light that interacts with what is near the columns containing optical prismatic film. The columns sense variations in proximal light, and through transmission, emission, and modulation are able "to create a kaleidoscope of changing color."

In 2000, Smart participated in an artist-in-residence with the John Michael Kohler Arts Center Arts/Industry program in the Kohler Co., a manufacturing company in Kohler, Wisconsin. He spent three months doing foundry work in cast iron, brass, and copper. In 2003, he worked at the Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin as an assistant professor of sculpture. In 2005, he was commissioned by the university to design and install a sculptural installation in the newly constructed science building. Here, 21 hexagonal panels (cells) of glass are secured within aluminum and brushed stainless steel frames that contain light-emitting diodes.

In summer 2005, Smart went to Oregon, Illinois to do a 9-day workshop of art and agriculture with mowed earthen-work on a 10 acre plot for the Fields Project Art Festival. He did a "Celtic Knot" mowed canvass on an Oregon farm.

In 2007, Smart installed the corten steel public art sculpture entitled SS Core Sphere purchased by the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is located on the Northwest end of downtown plaza Kilbourn Avenue Bridge. Randall A. Goldenin of the Mid life Crisis Crossover said: "I look at it and I see a beryllium sphere from Galaxy Quest." The sphere was created using repurposed end caps of propane tanks.

In 2009, Smart was commissioned to create Emitting Waves, a public art piece installed at Fire Station #5 in Evanston, Illinois. This sculpture of a continuous wave of water uses computer programmable LED illumination, cell-cast acrylic, glass, and stainless steel panels.

In 2000, Smart was invited to the village La Souterraine in central France to work at the Les Recontres Multicultural Arts Festival doing performance/sculpture in live cast mask making. In 2001, he went to an iron casting residency at the Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, Minnesota. He worked on the plaster casts made in France and turned them into cast iron through the sand casting process. In 2005, the iron casts were then used as a multi-part installation, entitled “La Souterraine de Couler,” for the Skokie Northshore Sculpture Park in Skokie, Illinois. The cast iron faces were mounted on steel I-beams and anchored to the ground. The park is situated along the North Shore Channel. The first sculptures were built in the park in 1988 and it now has over 70 sculptures. This is an ongoing work that Smart has maintained since 2005.

In 2001, Smart traveled to Topeka, Kansas to do an installation entitled “Core Sphere” for the Washburn University's Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition. In 2002, Smart went to Suffolk, England to do a residency for the US/UK International Iron Symposium in Suffolk. He worked with foundry casting of mixed metals.

In 2006, Smart was a Caldera artist-in-residence for the Caldera AiR Program near Sisters, Oregon. His project was doing installations in light (LEDs) and photography from the Oregon Cascades. That same year he did an exhibition that included installations and set design at the Fever Theater for the Portland Theatre Company for the play Mitlaufer, from collaborations built at the Caldera AiR Program.

Smart won the 2007 Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board in Minneapolis. The grant funded a collaborative project with students at the University of Minnesota that involved building a series of internally Illuminated spheres from recycled materials.

In 2009, Smart was commissioned by the Northland Community & Technical College in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. In 2011, he installed Wind Smithing Light, a permanent multi-part installation in aluminum, acrylic, and programmable LEDs, (110’ x 20’).

In 2010, Smart traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico to build 12 hand-carved cast-acrylic relief panels with images derived from all branches of science, for the Eastern New Mexico University's Science Hall in Portales, New Mexico. The panels are titled Cellular Phonics: Illumifusion, and are steel and glass, programmable with LED light. In 2011, Smart constructed a permanent “Cellular Photonics” structure that is a suspended helix structure composed of hexagonal glass panels, stainless steel, and programmable LED illumination, (20’ x 18’ x 18') for the Minneapolis Community and Technical College, (MCTC) Science Building in Minneapolis.

In 2013, Smart built a 35’ x 10’ x 2’ programmable LED “breathing wall” and seven roll-formed illuminated benches for the Penfield Redevelopment Project, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. All elements of the permanent structure use Corten steel and are illuminated along a 600 ft long plaza.

In 2014, Smart installed a monumental work entitled Ethos for the Sheridan Veterans Memorial at the Sheridan Memorial Park in Sheridan, Minneapolis. This 35’ x 35’ x 35’ central sculpture is made of Corten steel shields and internally illuminated. The memorial is surrounded by gardens and vertical markers describing the ten conflicts in which Minnesotans have served. As the apex of these markers, Smart integrated cast iron faces of several veterans and family members. The project took over three years to complete.

In 2017, Smart worked with Charles R. Stinston Architects in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to build two permanent stainless steel and cast glass sculptures suspended in a three-story lobby of the Al Nakhlah Tower in the King Abdullah Financial District.

Smart exhibited at the Art City Gallery in Ventura, California with 4 Sichuan artists and 14 California artists each having selected works in drawing, painting, and ceramics. The exhibition was held from May 19 through June 23, 2018. Smart has ongoing environmental site-specific installations in steel, light, and glass.