January 23 - March 22, 2026

Opening Reception: Friday, January 23, 6 to 8 p.m.

Jacob Smith

Thoughts & Prayers

Thoughts & Prayers is an exhibition that explores power, control, and ideology—examined through the lens of a fictional society. Through sculpture, 2D work, and immersive vignettes, artist Jacob Smith constructs a world that mirrors and distorts the structures of Western culture, revealing the absurdities and contradictions embedded within it.

Using furniture, artifacts, dioramas, and sculptural elements, Smith’s work interrogates the forces that shape identity: gender roles, religious dogma, political propaganda, militarism, and consumerism. These pieces do not present answers but rather pose questions—forcing the viewer to navigate an unfamiliar yet eerily recognizable world.

Critiquing one’s own culture carries the inherent risk of alienating parts of the audience before the work has been fully considered. By crafting a proxy society from the ground up, Smith lays bare the myths and mechanisms of his own. The constructed objects serve as relics of a belief system both foreign and intimately familiar, inviting reflection on the systems society inherits, perpetuates, and resists.

Thoughts & Prayers is a space for speculation, satire, and critique—a place to see the world not as it is, but as it might appear from the outside looking in.


About the Artist

Jacob Smith is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in photography, graphic design, sculpture, and public art. With his creative practice existing at the intersection of fine art and visual communication, Smith creates complex sculptures, witty 2D works, and large-scale, interactive installations. Smith’s work, often embedded with humor and satire, sparks conversations with audiences, communities, and the next generation of image-makers.

Jacob Smith is currently Art Program Coordinator and Associate Professor of Art at Ferrum College. He previously taught art courses at Virginia Western Community College, The George Washington University, and the Guy Mason Center in Washington, DC. As the former Director of Art at 4DD Studios, Smith managed the creation of monumental sculptures and exhibits that now reside in museums, parks, boardrooms, and government centers nationwide. Smith received his M.F.A. from The George Washington University and his B.A. from Roanoke College. Jacob Smith’s work, History of the Seeder Nation, was awarded First Place in the 2025 Juried Biennial by juror James Solomon.

https://www.thejakesmith.com/
https://www.themerchchurch.org/

Exhibition Preview