Shinique Smith

Shinique Smith is known for her expansive multimedia practice that includes monumental fabric sculptures and abstract paintings of calligraphy and collage. Inspired by childhood experiences, Smith has gleaned visual poetry from clothing and explored concepts of transformation and ritual using breath, bundling, and calligraphy as tools for 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. She has been the subject of solo exhibitions at LACMA, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the MFA Boston, among others. Her work has been acquired by numerous institutions including the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Guggenheim, and in 2022 she received the Academy of Arts & Letters Purchase Prize.

Submitted by Shinique Smith