SHINIQUE SMITH

Shinique Smith is known for her monumental fabric sculptures and abstract paintings of calligraphy and collage. Born to a young fashion designer who is also a visionary thinker, Smith was exposed to an array of inspirational, childhood experiences, that include chanting with his holiness the Dalai Lama, attending the fashion shows in New York and Paris and studying ballet, piano and visual art from the age of four years. Smith attended the famed Baltimore School for the Arts, where she began honing her hand through life drawing and tagging with a local graffiti crew. Smith’s personal histories and belongings intertwine with thoughts of the vast nature of ‘things’ that we consume, cherish, gift, and discard and how these objects resonate on intimate and social scales. Over the last twenty years, Smith has gleaned visual poetry from clothing and explored concepts of ritual using breath, bunding and calligraphy as tools toward abstraction. Her layered works range from palm-sized bundled microcosms to monolithic bales to massive chaotic paintings that contain vibrant and carefully collected mementos from her life. Smith’s practice operates at the convergence of consumption and spiritual sanctuary, balancing forces and revealing connections across space and time, race, gender and place to suggest the possibility of new worlds.

Born in Baltimore, MD, currently residing in Los Angeles, California, Smith has received awards and prizes from Joan Mitchell, the Tiffany Foundation, Anonymous Was a Woman and the American Academy of Arts and Letters among others. Her work has gained attention through her participation in celebrated biennials and group exhibitions including the 13th Bienal de Cuenca and 8th Busan Biennale; Frequency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, 30 Americans organized by the Rubell Family Collection, UnMonumental at the New Museum and Hauser + Wirth LA’s Revolution in the Making. Smith’s work has also been exhibited and collected by other prestigious institutions such as the Baltimore Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum of Art; California African American Museum, Denver Art Museum, Deutsche Guggenheim; the Frist; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Minneapolis Art Institute; MOMA PS1; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; National Portrait Gallery; the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Newark Museum and the Whitney Museum .

 Smith has created several landmark public works for NY Metro Arts, Chicago Transit Authority, Wabash Arts Corridor and USCF Medical Center among others, and has recently launched her monumental new mosaic mural to the public at MLK Jr Crenshaw station as part of the Los Angeles Metro’s New K Line.

All Artworks on this website are copyright Shinique Smith.