Shinique Smith facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Shinique Smith
Smith at work in her studio
Born	1971 (age 53–54) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Alma mater	Maryland Institute College of Art (B.F.A.) Tufts University (M.A.Ed) Maryland Institute College of Art (M.F.A.)
Awards	The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation

Shinique Smith (born in 1971) is an American visual artist. She is famous for her bright installation art and paintings. Her art often uses old fabrics and collage materials. Shinique Smith lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Early Life and Learning

Shinique Smith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1971. She started learning about art when she was very young. Her mother, who was a fashion editor, always encouraged her to be creative.

When she was four, Shinique started studying ballet. Later, she went to the Baltimore School for the Arts.

In high school, Shinique was inspired by graffiti artists in Baltimore. You can still see this style in her artwork today. She also studied Japanese calligraphy and abstract art in college. These studies helped her develop her unique artistic style.

After getting her first art degree from Maryland Institute College of Art, Shinique worked in movies. She helped with costumes and props for films like Disclosure and Serial Mom.

From 1995 to 2000, Shinique helped guide the 911 Media Arts Center in Seattle. There, she started Seattle's first festival for African American films and videos. It was called Flav'a Fest. This festival showed movies by new and famous filmmakers.

After working in movies, Shinique went back to school. She earned a master's degree in education from Tufts University in 2000. Then, she got another master's degree in fine arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2003. In 2003, Shinique moved to New York. She joined an artist program where she began making sculptures.

Art and Career

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

Shinique Smith mixes traditional art with words, bright colors, and found objects. She uses things like stuffed animals and old clothes in her art. She started using used clothing after reading an article about clothes sent to Africa from thrift stores.

Shinique says her art-making process is very personal. She explains, "It all begins with emotion... a journey of associations between object and color, between lyrics and fabric."

People describe Shinique's art as "kaleidoscopic," meaning it's full of many bright colors and patterns. Her work brings together "the vibrant, carefully collected debris of her life." It creates "graceful yet forceful combinations of many different materials and ideas." The Frist Art Museum says her art shows her own story. It also shows "a greater sense of cultural concern and connectivity."

Shinique's art became well-known in 2005. The Studio Museum in Harlem showed her first "bale sculpture" in an exhibition called Frequency. This show helped start the careers of other artists like Nick Cave and Hank Willis Thomas.

Her sculptures were also a big part of the first exhibition at the New Museum. This show, called Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century, featured many important artists. Shinique's art was also in 30 Americans. This exhibition showed works by African American artists from the Rubell Museum collection. It has traveled to many museums across the U.S. and is very popular.

Since these early shows, Shinique's art has been shown all over the world. In 2014, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston had a big show of her work called BRIGHT MATTER. A curator there said Shinique's art uses colors and found materials from American culture, especially from the 1980s.

The curator also said the exhibition showed how Shinique's art "visually manifests emotional connection, belief and the resilience of human energy." Her work shows a powerful range of feelings that, for Shinique, often lean towards joy.

Also in 2014, Shinique was asked to create a mural for Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway in Boston. Her work, Seven Moon Junction, was named one of the Best Public Art Projects of the year. The Greenway also asked her to make a dance video, Gesture III: One Great Turning. This video was filmed in front of her mural and featured the KAIROS Dance Theater.

Awards and Collections

Shinique Smith has won many awards for her art. In 2022, she received an Art Purchase Prize from The American Academy of Arts and Letters. She also won The Anonymous Was a Woman Award in 2016 and The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award in 2013.

Her art is part of many important museum collections. These include the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Select Solo Exhibitions

Shinique Smith has had many solo exhibitions, which means shows featuring only her work. Here are a few examples:

• Shinique Smith: PARADE, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 2023-2025
• Shinique Smith: Stargazers, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 2022
• Shinique Smith: Grace Stands Beside, Baltimore Museum of Art, 2020
• Shinique Smith: Refuge, California African American Museum (CAAM), Los Angeles, 2018
• Shinique Smith: Project Atrium Quickening, MOCA Jacksonville, 2016
• Shinique Smith: Wonder and Rainbows, The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN, 2015-2016
• Shinique Smith: BRIGHT MATTER, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2014-2015
• Shinique Smith: Bold As Love, James Cohan Gallery, New York, 2013
• SHINIQUE SMITH: To the Ocean of Everyone Else, Brand New Gallery, Milan, 2011
• Shinique Smith: Menagerie, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, 2010
• Ten Times Myself, Yvon Lambert, New York, 2009
• Shinique Smith: Like it Like that, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, 2009

Public Projects

Shinique Smith has created many public art projects that people can see in different places.

Rotating Projects

These projects are shown for a limited time:

• Peter Blum Gallery, a group exhibition Fabric featured Shinique Smith's works Boston (2022) and Pieces of Grace (2020) in 2023.
• "Aspen Art Museum at Elk Camp", a special project in Snowmass called Shinique Smith: Resonant Tides was shown from 2015 to 2017.
• Open Source, a citywide exhibition in Philadelphia, included her mural and performance project, Shine Space.
• Seven Moon Junction, a large mural at Dewey Square Park in Boston, was displayed from 2014 to 2015.

Permanent Projects

These artworks are always on display:

• "Only Love, Only Light", for the Los Angeles Metro Transit Authority, completed in 2017.
• First Born of the Child's Sunrise, a mixed media artwork at the Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown African American Department at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, completed in 2016.
• Joy's Way, at The UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay in San Francisco, completed in 2014.
• Mother Hale's Garden, a large mosaic and hand-painted art glass piece at The Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot in New York, completed in 2013.
• Twilight and Dawn, permanent murals at The Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, completed in 2010.

Performances

Shinique Smith also creates performance art. Here are some of her performances:

• Breathing Room: Bound and Loose - Performed at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 2020.
• Breathing Room - Performed in 2018 during Kansas City Open Spaces.
• Gesture III: One Great Turning - Filmed in 2015 in front of Smith's mural Seven Moon Junction. It featured KAIROS Dance Company.
• Gesture II: Between two breaths - Performed by Shinique Smith and Marisa Arriaga at Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2015.
• Gesture I: Unraveling - Performed by Marisa Arriaga at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2014.