Blair Ebony Smith

Blair Ebony Smith (artist alter ego, lovenloops) is a practicing artist-scholar and lover. As a sample-based sound artist, DJ and homegirl with Black girl celebratory collective/band, Saving Our Lives, Hear Our Truths (SOLHOT) We Levitate, Blair deepened her love for Black sound, music and making space for Black girlhood celebration with Black girls. Her art and scholarship explore themes of memory, loops, home, collectivity, everlasting love and sound/listening. Smith is the author of solo, co-written, co-edited works in Wish to Live: Hip Hop Feminist Pedagogy Reader, An Outkast Reader:  Essays on Race, Gender and the Postmodern South, American Quarterly, Visual Arts Research and Experiments in Art Research: How Do We Live Questions Through Art? She teaches classes focused on Black girlhood, Black femme, queer and feminist art, music, sound, pedagogy, play, and listening. 

She is working on a multi-modal digital book project titled Love and Loops: Memory, Time, Sound & Black Girlhood. Recent exhibitions and curations include the Krannert Art Museum (Illinois) and the Luminary (St. Louis). She has performed as a DJ and sound artist with her bandmates across the nation at various institutions, and solo at Richmond Independent Radio, Institute of Contemporary Art VCU, Diggin in the Crates at Virginia Tech, and Slo’ Mo’ Queer Dance Party in Chicago, Illinois and more. Since 2014, She has composed sample-based sound art, beats, and loops under her alter ego, lovenloops released tracks on SoundCloud and Bandcamp, making music with lovers, friends, and homegirls.  She released her first project, Don’t Ever Forget It (2016) with Roman Norfleet’s independent label Soulvember Records (circa 2016-2018) based in Los Angeles, CA. Blair is currently an Assistant Professor of Art Education and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.