Shinique Smith
Smith at work in her studio
Born1971 (age 52–53)
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Alma materMaryland Institute College of Art (B.F.A.)
Tufts University (M.A.Ed)
Maryland Institute College of Art (M.F.A.)
AwardsThe Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation

Websiteshiniquesmith.com

Shinique Smith (born January 9, 1971) is an American visual artist, known for her colorful installation art and paintings that incorporate found textiles and collage materials.[1] She is based in Los Angeles, California.

Early life and education

Born in 1971, in Baltimore, Maryland, Smith's artistic training began in childhood, encouraged toward the creative arts by her mother, a fashion editor. She began studying ballet at age four, and later attended the Baltimore School for the Arts.[2]

In high school, Smith was influenced by artists in the Baltimore graffiti scene, an aesthetic also visible in her mature work. Her studies of Japanese calligraphy and abstraction in college also influenced her artistic development.[2]

After earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Maryland Institute College of Art, Smith worked as a costumer and props assistant on movies such as Disclosure, Guarding Tess, Serial Mom, and That Night.[3] From 1995 to 2000, Smith served on the advisory board of 911 Media Arts Center in Seattle, where she launched Seattle's first festival of African American film and video called Flav'a Fest.[4] Described in the press as "an annual journey through the visions, lives and dreams of media makers of African ancestry,"[4] the festival hosted films by emerging and established filmmakers such as Cheryl Dunye, Cauleen Smith, Barbara McCullough, Kasi Lemmons, and Charles Burnett (who was honored by Flav'a Fest and Seattle Mayor Norm Rice at a special screening of Killer of Sheep in 1997).

After working in the film industry, Smith returned to her studies and earned a Master of Arts degree in education from Tufts University in 2000 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2003.[1] In 2003, Smith moved to New York and participated in The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's artist studio residency, where she began making sculpture.[5]

Art and career

Daisies up your butterfly (2013) at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 2023

Shinique Smith combines fine art media with text, bright colors, and found objects, such as stuffed animals and clothing.[2][3] She began to include used clothing in her work after reading a New York Times Magazine article about secondhand garments shipped to Africa from thrift stores.[6] She describes her process as a personal one: "It all begins with emotion, an expression and I allow myself to go on a journey in the making of each work, a journey of associations between object and color, between lyrics and fabric, between the viewer and me."[7]

Smith's art has been described as "kaleidoscopic,"[3] collecting "the vibrant, carefully collected debris of her life and career"[2] and creating "graceful yet forceful combinations of many different materials and ideas."[8] The Frist Art Museum has interpreted Smith's work as conveying her personal history as well as "a greater sense of cultural concern and connectivity."[8]

Her work gained critical attention when The Studio Museum in Harlem exhibited her first bale sculpture in Frequency in 2005, an exhibition that helped launch the careers of other artists of Smith's generation such as Nick Cave, Kalup Linzy, Xaviera Simmons, and Hank Willis Thomas.[9]

Smith's sculptural works were also prominently featured in the acclaimed launch exhibition of the New Museum, Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century, which featured works by Sam Durant, Urs Fischer, Isa Genzken, Elliott Hundley, and Jim Lambie to name a few.[10] Smith's art was featured in 30 Americans, an exhibition of works by African American artists (including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rashid Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, Lorna Simpson, Mickalene Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, and Kehinde Wiley among others) in the permanent collection of the Rubell Museum in Miami[11] that has toured extensively since 2009 and been a favored by critics and viewers at many museums across the U.S.[12]

Since these exhibitions, Smith's works have been exhibited at numerous venues internationally, including a recent 2014 survey of her work BRIGHT MATTER at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, where Jen Mergel, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art described the palette of Smith's works in the exhibition and use of found materials as "a product of United States culture especially from the 1980s."[13] Mergel said the exhibition "reflects an essential aspect of Smith's practice: how to visually manifest emotional connection, belief and the resilience of human energy through gestures and materials that shape daily life. Her work is an embodiment of the powerful spectrum of expression that for Smith, leans toward joy.[14]

Also in 2014, Smith was commissioned by The Rose F. Kennedy Greenway in Boston to create a mural for their rotating exhibition wall. Smith's work, Seven Moon Junction was nationally recognized as one of the Best Public Art Projects Annually by Americans for the Arts Public Art Year in Review. The Greenway also commissioned Smith to create an accompanying dance performance video, Gesture III: One Great Turning, a collaboration with Boston-based KAIROS Dance Theater, which was filmed on The Greenway in front Smith's mural.[15]

Awards and collections

Shinique Smith received an Art Purchase Prize from The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2022, The Anonymous Was a Woman Award in 2016, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2013, The Maryland Institute College of Art's Alumni Medal of Honor in 2012, and a Joan Mitchell Prize in 2008. Smith's work is included in several prestigious permanent collections, including the Ackland Art Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Denver Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Palmer Museum of Art, The Rubell Family Collection, Miami; the Minneapolis Institute of Art;[16] and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

She is represented by David Castillo Gallery, Miami.

Select solo exhibitions

2023

2022

2020

2019

2018

2016

MOCA Jacksonville, Shinique Smith: Project Atrium Quickening, March 19 - June 26[22]

2015

2014

2013

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2002

Public projects

Rotating

Permanent

Performances

Curatorial projects

References

  1. ^ a b Pinder, Kymberly N. (2008). "Unbaled: An Interview with Shinique Smith". Art Journal. 67 (2): 7. doi:10.1080/00043249.2008.10791301. S2CID 194062621.
  2. ^ a b c d Brooks, Katherine (18 September 2014). "Shinique Smith Crafts A Celestial Universe From Ink, Textiles And Other 'Bright Matter'". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  3. ^ a b c "Meet Shinique Smith, The Black Artist Behind The Center Piece Of Mickey Mouse's 90th Anniversary Pop Art Exhibition". Essence. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  4. ^ a b Hartl, John (26 February 1999). "'Flav'a Fest' Winds Down This Weekend". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  5. ^ Fromm, Sheridan. "Artist: Body Spotlight- Shinique smith". LexingtonArtLeague.org.
  6. ^ Sheets, Hilarie M. (7 March 2013). "Giving Castoffs a Second Life". The New York Times. The New York Times. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  7. ^ shinique smith
  8. ^ a b "Shinique Smith Brings Her Vibrant Paintings and Sculptures to Nashville's Frist Center". PR Newswire. 2015-08-12. Archived from the original on 2015-09-06. Retrieved 2015-11-19.
  9. ^ Pollack, Barbara (January 2010). "Clothes Connections". Artnews.
  10. ^ Smith, Roberta (2007-11-30). "Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century - New Museum of Contemporary Art - Art - Review". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-03-26.
  11. ^ "30 Americans". Rubell Museum. Retrieved 2020-08-11.
  12. ^ Schumacher, Mary Louise. "'30 Americans' at the Milwaukee Art Museum". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
  13. ^ Edgers, Geoff (August 16, 2014). "Bringing joy to Smith's 'Bright Matter' works". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  14. ^ a b "MFA Boston Debuts New Works in "Shinique Smith: BRIGHT MATTER"". www.mfa.org.
  15. ^ "Inter/Sections".
  16. ^ "Bale Variant No. 0024 (Everything), Shinique Smith ^ Minneapolis Institute of Art". collections.artsmia.org. Retrieved 2021-02-06.
  17. ^ "Shinique Smith: STARGAZERS". www.jccc.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-04.
  18. ^ "Shinique Smith: Grace Stands Beside | Baltimore Museum of Art". Shinique Smith: Grace Stands Beside | Baltimore Museum of Art. Retrieved 2023-04-04.
  19. ^ "Transforming neglected materials into art". UBS Contemporary Art. Retrieved 2023-04-04.
  20. ^ "Shinique Smith's "Indelible Marks" at Art Basel's UBS Lounge". Whitewall. 3 December 2019. Retrieved 2023-04-04.
  21. ^ "Shinique Smith Adds New Layers to Her Fabric Work With a Show That Doubles as a Collection for LA's Homeless". artnet News. 2018-04-18. Retrieved 2019-01-04.
  22. ^ "Shinique Smith". mocajacksonville.unf.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-30.
  23. ^ "Shinique Smith: Wonder and Rainbows - Frist Art Museum". fristartmuseum.org. Retrieved 2019-01-30.
  24. ^ "Threaded". Moss Arts Center. March 9, 2019.
  25. ^ a b c "Shinique Smith". Springmann.
  26. ^ "Shinique Smith". Springmann. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  27. ^ "Fabric - Exhibitions - Peter Blum Gallery, New York". www.peterblumgallery.com. Retrieved 2023-06-14.
  28. ^ "Shinique Smith: Resonant Tides". Aspen Art Museum. Retrieved 2019-01-30.
  29. ^ "Shine Space". Mural Arts Philadelphia. Retrieved 2019-11-15.
  30. ^ "Shinique Smith, 2014". Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy. Retrieved 2019-01-30.
  31. ^ Broverman, Neal (January 22, 2018). "An Early Look at All the Artwork Coming to the Metro Crenshaw Line Los Angeles Magazine". Los Angeles Magazine. Retrieved April 21, 2019.
  32. ^ "Shinique Smith, Joy's Way, 2014, UCSF Medical Center Mission Bay Hospitals, San Francisco, CA | Lynne Baer". www.baerartprojects.com. Retrieved 2019-11-15.
  33. ^ Morris, Melissa C. (2013-08-27). "Art in Transit: A Conversation with Shinique Smith". Art in America. Retrieved 2019-11-15.
  34. ^ "MTA - Arts & Design | NYCT Buses Permanent Art". web.mta.info. Retrieved 2019-11-15.
  35. ^ Feldberg, Sarah (2010-10-26). "The Cosmopolitan's writing on the wall - Las Vegas Sun Newspaper". lasvegassun.com. Retrieved 2019-11-15.

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