Although couched in humor, irony, and satire, Smith’s work in recent decades offers a biting critique of American capitalism and consumerism. In these paintings and prints, she targets the once foreign concepts of private property and commodity foods (the rations given by the federal government to people living on reservations), which have decimated Indigenous economies, diets, and medicinal practices. She also takes aim at Manifest Destiny, the Anglo-Christian doctrine that asserted westward expansion was a divine plan for the United States, thus justifying the attempted extermination of Indigenous peoples.
The repercussions of these beliefs and policies live on in the many ways that contemporary consumer culture has infiltrated Native American traditions: canned Spam instead of bison meat, for instance, or manufactured pharmaceuticals rather than herbal medicines. Looking more widely at life across the US, Smith draws connections between visual tropes of the “Wild West,” like the “cowboys and Indians” of advertising and entertainment, and the seemingly unlimited reach of corporate influences into even the smallest and most personal experiences of contemporary daily life.
