About

Madeline Rile Smith uses glass as a performative vehicle to consider notions of intimacy, compromise, and embodiment. Informed by her background in music, she creates objects which explore connection and isolation. Her work has been exhibited in venues throughout the US and internationally, and has been featured in New Glass Review 41 and 35. Madeline has instructed glassworking in schools and institutions throughout the East Coast, including Tyler School of Art, UrbanGlass, Salem Community College, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Crefeld School. A passionate educator, she uses social media to bring awareness of glass art to new audiences

You can see more of her current work and educational videos on Instagram, Youtube, and TikTok.

Artist Statement

Informed by my experience with chronic pain, my work explores degrees of ability and compromise of the human body. Pain has caused periods of isolation in my life, and as a result I have a strong impulse to connect with others. I utilize glass as a performative vehicle to explore interaction between people. Through objects and performance, I examine the pleasure, intimacy and discomfort that accompany the interpersonal experiences, which we all seek. 

I draw upon glass’s capacity for sound and optics to create objects for sensory disruption and amplification. I am curious where the line is drawn between help and hindrance, between intimacy and unease. My instruments of connection and compromise invite people to engage in acts of intimacy and potential discomfort. These objects ask the question-- how close is too close? What are the limits?

In the studio, both body and material navigate and transform through tests of strength, stamina, and speed. Just like the human body, glass has physical limits which ask to be challenged. My work draws a parallel between the physicality of glass and the human body, comparing material affordance to corporeal affordance. I utilize the material metaphors inherent to glass--invisibility, luminosity, resilience, and fragility-- to consider the dualities of pain and joy; fluidity and rigidity; and isolation and connection.