The now greatly esteemed artist Nick Cave actually came from humble beginnings, one of eight children raised by a single mother in Fulton, Missouri, caring for crops and chickens on his grandparents' farm. But his mom very much encouraged his interest in the creative arts; and at the persuasion of a high school teacher / mentor he was emboldened to enroll in the Kansas City Art Institute, where he would go on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

His continuing passions for dance, fashion and music would ultimately inform his visual art practice; yet both the struggles and the singular joys of his childhood would remain a significant influence on his work. So it's surely no surprise that with possibly his most high profile museum presentation to date - his current exhibition titled 'Nick Cave: Mammoth' at the hallowed Smithsonian in DC - he would look back to that childhood as a main point of inspiration.

It is in fact the largest commission in the museum's history, which curator Sarah Newman describes as "a conversation across time, a meditation on how and why we make and how we live with what we inherit."

Cave is arguably a master of visually conjuring memory - and at the heart of the installation is a fascinating re-imagination of the Chariton County landscape in which he grew up.

"I come from an amazing family of makers", he told CNN earlier this year, "from woodworkers to carpenters to seamstresses to bakers, poets, musicians, painters. And so I started to dive deep into really exploring all of these amazing people that have influenced who I am today.”

“It led me down this sort of path of really asking myself 'How was I made?'.”

A sprawling assemblage of symbolically-imbued "mementos" that appear to both represent his family history and also seek to interpret it for the viewer feels almost overwhelming, as if he had kept making new discoveries and anxiously adding them in time for the exhibition's opening. If at first glance it seems chaotically organized, one need only consider how histories never actually unfold in an orderly way. Yet there is a distinct sense that a careful emotional and chronological consideration underlies it all - something almost totemic in the way that it is assisting him in at last telling his story in such a definitive way.

Notably, he chose to center a 700-square-foot white table for the purpose of displaying hundreds of commemorative objects, somewhat akin to an archaeological presentation. Yet one might also imagine it as a kind of spiritually suffused altar to the recollections of his youth - which is perhaps best comprehended by means of quiet, solemn contemplation.

"He gathers fragments of everyday life," Newman observes, "toys, tools, keepsakes, even the remains of ancient creatures, and transforms them into a space of memory and imagination. His work is a powerful reminder that objects are often more than things; they carry our histories, our knowledge, and the stories that carry us forward."

But what about the title?

Surely 'Mammoth' refers not only to the scale of the project, but also to its degree of emotional weightiness. Symbolically, a lifeguard's chair is topped with a sizable pair of white tusks; and the continuously looped film 'Roam' shows his gargantuan found-object representations of the awesome creatures wandering ominously around central Chicago, which has been his home for many years.

It is the sort of profound American story - the journey from modest childhood to cultural icon - that is surely so perfectly suited to the mission of the Smithsonian.

"It builds on our commitment to present artists whose work speaks to the American experiences and fosters connection", offers Jane Carpenter-Rock, the museum's acting Margaret and Terry Stent Director, explaining that it is presented "in dialogue with the sweep of American art across our galleries."