She works on curatorial projects, scholarly research, and studio practices, while her art deals with uncertainty, risk, and experimentation.

She is currently based in Dundee, Scotland, where she is as a postgraduate student in the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, specializing in forensic art, under the Chevening Award scheme.

During her time at the Artist's Press in 2004, she produced a series of collages incorporating visual media, conversations, observations and sampled words from society.

These works challenge the viewer to play the role of a detective by "unraveling clues and references that may not announce themselves outright.

In 2009, Smith opened up Serialworks, her apartment studio in the Woodstock neighbourhood in Cape Town, as a project space.

[citation needed] Kathryn Smith conceptualised and edited One Million and Forty-Four Years (and Sixty Three Days), which is an anthology of current attitudes towards the avant-garde.