By 1990, her work had come to international prominence, establishing Smith as a leading proponent of artists addressing philosophical, social, legal and spiritual aspects of the human body.

 
"I like making things delicate. I guess you could call them 'girls' materials;' but they're just things that are associated with girls: soft materials like paper-mache. . . I would just as easily use some other material, but I like that quality of fragility. I'm making work that's about the body, playing with the indestructability of life, where life is this ferocious force that keeps propelling us; at the same time, it's also about how you can just pierce it and it dies. I'm always playing between these two extremes about life"