A discrete figure of the French art scene, Seton Smith draws the subjects of her photographs from interior spaces – architectural details, museums, archaeological objects – as well as from nature. The dialogue between the “inside” and “outside” runs throughout her work. At the extreme opposite of the documentary photography practiced by artists of her generation (the Düsseldorf School), she indeed favours large formats and light boxes, but for an unreal, enigmatic and pictorial rendering. At the risk of perturbing the immediate reading of the space or object represented, she uses blurring and cropping in order to establish a psychological dialogue between the viewer and her images. Daughter of the Minimalist sculptor Tony Smith and sister of Kiki Smith (1954), with whom she spent her childhood making small models and geometric modular forms, she spent her formative years studying in Boston, where she developed an interest in urban spaces, landscapes and the environment, within a cultural and philosophical perspective. Her preoccupations are nourished by essays on architecture and the influence of land art.

Searching for tiny traces of human constructions, she realised her early photographs in remote rural spaces. In 1979, she moved to New York. She presented her work in Europe for the first time in Cologne in the group exhibition Parevents in 1984, before moving to France to photograph historic buildings and parks. Based on the perception of nature, her works are presented in a number of public and private French institutions. It was in France that she realised her first in situ projects, integrating photographs into the natural landscape itself, such as with Escales realised in Brittany in 1991. Winner of the 1998 HSBC prize in Paris, S. Smith has been the subject of large monographic exhibitions in France and abroad. Her current interest is in urban landscapes and American vernacular architecture.