Bio

“My name is Zoe Smith Crepp and I’m a multimedia writer and artist who works mainly in poetry and collage. My practice is confessional in nature and focuses on analyzing relationship dynamics and practices/experiences of love. Investigations of these broad topics often call on discussions of societal issues that relate to my identities as a mixed-race, queer woman.”

Artist Statement

The ways that women communicate information through generations inspired Crepp’s methodology of using deconstruction and reconstruction to represent the effect differing levels of honesty have on families. This mode of working, which quickly became the backbone of her ritualized practice, is embedded within each element of the final work. Crepp began Poets/Mothers/Girls (2025) by composing an original set of reflections on five women from her mother’s side of the family before beginning to manipulate those words by redacting some and adding others. This process resulted in a recombinant poem inked on hand-made paper, one that tenderly reflects her family’s narrative and her hopes for their future. Though the five pages are hung together and meant to be read as one complete poem, each sheet and its text (legible and implanted) come from Crepp’s original reflections on each respective woman. Thus, the five pages, which are ordered left to right from oldest to youngest, serve to represent all five individuals and their place within their family’s structure. The artist took this methodology one step further by hand-crafting paper sheets from pulp made of the individual poems which she had initially written about each woman. Below the suspended poems, is an altar-like space, featuring two offerings. The first, a small bouquet with five types of flowers (one chosen by each woman), and the second, a small selection of family photographs. Together, the elements represent an intimate form of personal portraiture and homage to the women in Crepp’s family.