Matt Smiley is a Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based contemporary artist and filmmaker whose vibrant neo-expressionist and post-pop paintings fuse automatic writing, electric color, and pop-culture iconography to explore memory, identity, and the myths we share.

Parallel to his studio practice, Smiley directed two acclaimed Netflix documentaries: the landmark Highway of Tears (2014), which brought sustained global attention to Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women, and For Love (2022), narrated by Shania Twain, examining the lasting impact of the residential school-to-child-welfare system.

Smiley’s neo-expressionist paintings and immersive installations have been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Mondrian Hotel’s Magic Box Gallery in Los Angeles (“Down the Rabbit Hole,” 2025), 1 Hotel West Hollywood (“Love, Nostalgia, & the Tempest of my Mind,” 2024), and his New York debut TIME TO BE SMILEY at Time To Be Happy Gallery (2025). His work has featured in major platforms such as the LA Art Show, The Other Art Fair, and Aspen Institute programming, and has been exhibited alongside Ed Ruscha, Kenny Scharf, Shepard Fairey, James Turrell, and others. Held in distinguished private collections across the United States, Canada, and Europe,