SHINIQUE SMITH

Shinique Smith is celebrated for transforming everyday materials—clothing, textiles, and found objects—into vibrant abstractions that merge the personal and the universal. Her work begins with tender, deliberate gestures—folding, wrapping, and arranging fabrics and keepsakes imbued with memory. “Each piece starts with touch,” Smith explains, “a reverent attention to the histories these materials carry.”

Born in Baltimore and now based in Los Angeles, Smith bridges fine art, craft, and ritual. Her background in drawing, painting, etching, textile arts, and papermaking gives her deep material fluency, while her early training in both fashion and graffiti shaped her instinct for movement and rhythm. Through color, calligraphy, and accumulation, she transforms the language of the everyday into meditations on care, belonging, and transformation.

Over two decades, Smith has become a vital voice in contemporary abstraction. Her work has appeared in major exhibitions and biennials including the 13th Bienal de Cuenca, the 8th Busan Biennale, Frequency at the Studio Museum in Harlem, 30 Americans at the Rubell Museum, and UnMonumental at the New Museum. Her work is represented in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Baltimore Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Denver Art Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among others.

Smith has also created landmark public artworks for the Los Angeles Metro’s K Line, NY Metro Arts, and Chicago Transit Authority, and recently unveiled a monumental aluminum sculpture at Royal Caribbean’s Garage K for Miami Arts in Public Places. Her voice and vision continue to expand the language of abstraction through empathy, gesture, and the alchemy of everyday materials.

All Artworks on this website are copyright Shinique Smith.