Kambel Smith (b. 1986) is an Autisarian—a Smith family word that describes autism as a gift of super-human ability. He lives and works in Philadelphia.
We recommend you watch this emotional exposition about Kambel Smith and his work. You can watch it here.
Kambel Smith (b. 1986) is an Autisarian—a Smith family word that describes autism as a gift of super-human ability. He lives and works in Philadelphia. With an uncanny ability to render architectural details in miniature from photographs, Smith works primarily in cardboard and formboard. He has had one-person exhibitions at The Green Gallery, Milwaukee; Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia; Marlborough, New York; the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta; Elaine de Kooning House, East Hampton, New York; and the 2019 Outsider Art Fair (presented by Chris Byrne), New York. Smith’s work has been included in group exhibitions at Marlborough, London, and the Brooklyn Print & Photo Fair, New York. His work is in the collections of the American Folk Art Museum, New York; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; and the West Collection, Oaks, Pennsylvania. In 2021, he received a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and in 2022, he received a Wynn Newhouse Award.
Sculpture/Painter
With no formal training in art or architecture he uses a natural ability to gauge perspective and scale without measuring tools. Germantown artist Kambel Smith, currently curated by the Marlborough Museum builds large-scale, intricate sculptures of historical buildings out of cardboard collected from trash. His ability to see and recreate scale quickly propelled him into the world of fine art.
Kambel's pieces have sold for upwards of $25,000 and have been purchased by the American Folk Art Museum, The West Collection, and various private investors including a Texas collector who purchased his sculpture of the Philadelphia Eagles Lincoln Financial Field for an undisclosed amount.
My Beginning
I am proud to say I am an artist. Although my journey has been a complicated one, it gives me peace of mind and heart to realize I have always been an artist. The spoken word has never been my preferred method of communication, so my challenge is to create art that expresses my passion and clearly speaks to others. This challenge is met by my inexhaustible desire to recreate the world around me through my lens. By using works of art to express how I see the world I hope to impact the way others see it as well.
My Defining Moment
I don't remember the most defining moment of my life, but one thing that's very clear is how angry I was. Maybe the anger is the reason why I can't recall what happened, but my father believes it was the moment that saved my life.
In my bedroom, he found a pile of crumpled papers. They were drawings expressing my view of the world through actual enemies in battle with superhumans I created to help me fight them. I hid the drawings because they symbolized the world that would not accept me, but for my father they uncovered a talent that would ultimately change my life.
He began to create stories about the characters in my drawings. Those stories opened up a whole new world for me. In the years following, we created dozens of new characters, published four novels, created an animated motion picture, and accumulated over 400 paintings and drawings, but little did I know this was just the beginning of my artistic journey.