Chase Smith

ART AS SURVIVAL "LIVING" in Long Beach, California, building a personal visual mythology through turbulence, memory, and survival. His work revolves around the Watcher, a recurring eye motif that emerges across canvases, murals, and field paintings as a symbol of vigilance, obsession, and transformation.

A self-taught artist, SHAM blends street influence with meditative abstraction, working primarily with acrylics, spray-paint, air brush and layered gradients, with flowing linework. His process is physical and instinctive never painting outdoors in natural light, environment is controlled curated by emotion, and movement shape the final forms.

At 19, one of SHAM'S earliest breakthroughs came in the form of a 25-foot wall mural — only the third painting he had ever created. That early leap into large-scale work still informs the ambition and raw immediacy of his practice today.

SHAM produces only one-of-one pieces. No repeats. Each work is a moment caught, kept, and released. Drawing daily, archiving sketchbooks, and developing ongoing visual series that trace personal transformation.

SHAM IS THE ARTIST YOU WISH YOU FOUND EARLIER

Self-taught artist
Independent study through daily drawing, field painting, and long-form sketchbook practice.

Upcoming live-painting exhibition, 2025
Select works held in private collections across the United States
Online exhibition releases through Sham Labs