Richard C. Smith (1950) is the third of four children born to a family of modest means in a large suburb of London. He had trouble at school, probably due to learning disabilities, but he loved his drawing classes. He left school at fifteen to work. While still in adolescence, a motorcycle accident incited him to take drugs. Lacking any professional qualifications and rapidly acquiring a polyaddiction to hard drugs, his life took a chaotic turn. He has carried out a series of physically demanding jobs, including that of gravedigger, and endured several stays in jail.

Yet when circumstances allow, Richard C. Smith draws and paints on salvaged materials such as sundry papers, wood and metals. Once freed of his addiction in the late nineties, he turned his full attention to his artistic activity, producing a great number of drawings, paintings, sculptures and assemblages. His works depict entangled figures and faces that bear witness to a rich and strange inner world.