Born into a family of sharecroppers, Mary T. Smith worked on farms as a gardener and cook. She experienced a life of hardship and suffering.

Afflicted with a disability, she suffered from severe hearing loss at a young age and had limited communication skills.

Upon her retirement in the late 1970s, Mary T. Smith began to paint. She transformed her house and garden into a spiritual, autobiographical environment.

She created her work on plywood, corrugated iron, and other recycled materials. One of her favorite subjects was painting portraits of family, friends, and neighbors. Many of her works feature figures with raised arms, an image associated with ecstasy or spiritual enlightenment. Her work sometimes incorporated text alongside her images.

These textual elements in her work were cryptic and created a personal vocabulary of painting that documented and celebrated her world, both religious and secular. She is one of Jean-Michel Basquiat's major influences.