Shinique Smith

Shinique Smith is known for her striking creations of fabric, calligraphy, and collage. Inspired by the vast number of things that we as a culture create, consume, and discard, her works resonate on both individual and social scales. Smith’s two- and three-dimensional works suggest coded messages created from cloth and calligraphy. Each work comprises flashes of memory and emotion, paralleled with the history, beauty, and possibilities that are bound within fabric and writing.

Totemic, hand-bound sculptures of clothing and textiles serve as monumental containers that both memorialize and transform these often-neglected materials and the potential magic that resides in them. Smith was inspired by a 2002 article in the ‘New York Times Magazine’, “How Susie Bayer’s T-shirt ended Up on Yusuf Mama’s Back,” which chronicled the transfer of discarded clothing, compressed into bales, from the United States to developing countries, where the items gained new consumer value. The article traced the journey of a shirt donated to a thrift store by a woman in Manhattan to a man who purchased it in West Africa. Smith also examined ways that people experiencing housing insecurity bundle their things, as well as ritual practices of tying. ‘Bale Variant No.0025 (Good & Plenty)’ (2019) is a gradient from black to white. The artist has incorporated fabrics that she has written on with pen and brush. She then bundled them with textiles that have existing patterns in black-and-white.

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