Co-Founder; Chair
Board of Directors

Lauren Dana Smith is an artist, writer and art therapist living in Taos, New Mexico. Smith’s work utilizes sculptural and digital materials to process land and body politics through a feminist lens. Smith studied painting and received her B.A. from Skidmore College, in Saratoga Springs, New York. Smith is a faculty member at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, where she received her M.P.S. in Creative Arts Therapy and Creativity Development. Previously, Smith was a core organizer and producer of Bushwick Open Studios in NYC; at the time, the country’s largest all-volunteer led arts festival. Smith’s digital and sculptural paintings have been exhibited regionally and nationally, with group shows in New York, Denver, Texas and New Mexico. In 2021 she received a SURFACE: Emerging Artist of New Mexico award from the Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque. She has been recognized nationally for her digital art series. Her work has appeared in publications such as Hyperallergic, Art & Cake LA, New Visionary Magazine, ARTWALK magazine and the Santa Fe Literary Review.

Board of Directors, Vice Chair

bianca goyette works in layers. She uses overlapping elements and media to erode the distance between the real and the imaginary, working with materials and processes that speak to the strength and fragility of the human condition. She is a multitude of things working in a multitude of media. She was once told that people get confused if you are too many things, but as Nancy Shaver says, “confusion gets a bad rap.” She is a storyteller, a vocalist, a photographer working in still and moving pictures, a writer, a laser etcher, a papermaker, a sculptor, and a designer. Her work focuses on personal experiences that have tendrils in the breadth of society. It is her own racial experience, her own social experience, her own political experience, her own experiences with language, communication, community (or the lack thereof), and a perpetual need to rethink understanding.

bianca has a BFA from Parsons School of Design and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has released three studio albums and six singles, has performed in venues across the U.S., exhibited her work in numerous galleries in numerous cities, and is a creative director and copywriter specializing in the fabrication of digital assets and experiences that shift how we interact with and perceive the world.

Board of Directors

Lynette O’Kane is a Taos based artist with an extensive exhibition history. Her works have been shown both nationally and internationally, including exhibits in New York, Los Angeles, Munich and Frankfurt Germany.

She has obtained numerous commissions, both private and public, including a Percentage for the Arts commission in Kodiak Alaska, a public commission from the Center for the Study of Applied Ethnicity at Colorado State University and most
recently, a commission for the private dining area at the Ritz Hotel in Bachelor
Gulch Avon, Colorado.

Lynette was the sole 2018 Artist in Residence at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Reserve.

Board of Directors

A multimedia artist primarily working sculpturally in stone, bronze and ceramics; Brian’s practice pursues the human form through expressions of identity while investigating the vitality of belonging. A parallel practice of abstraction is founded upon listening — informed by the musicality of repetition and active responses to the medium. Having apprenticed sculpture in Germany and the US, they furthered their studies at the University of Wisconsin and have exhibited in the US and Europe. A lifelong commitment to collective engagement, they host the Alluvial Project, an artist-run project space and AIR. Brian is represented by Sun & Dust in Santa Fe, NM.

Board Member

Sid Barrett is a retired public health officer who creates art out of acrylic paint and objects found lying around his studio.  Over a period of fifty years, he has transitioned from photorealism to abstract art. Sid is a regular volunteer at art happenings around Taos and a longtime DJ for freeform radio station KNCE-FM. 

Board Member

Dani is a painter and silversmith, living in Santa Fe.  Her passionate support of artists through advocacy, helping build relationships between working artists and developing residency opportunities brings Dani to TAAC.  She brings experience in fundraising and program development from earlier board participation and having recently run a residency program north of Taos.